Business 


MODERN   ADVERTISING 


A  Selection  of 

APPLETONS'    BUSINESS     BOOKS 

Fundamentals  of  Salesmanship,  by  Morris  A.  Brisco 

Retail  Selling  and  Store  Management,  by  Paul  H.  Nystrom 

Advertising  and  Selling,  by  H.  L.  Hollingworth 

The  Business  of  Advertising,  by  Earnest  Elmo  Calkins 

Modern  Advertising,  by  Earnest  Elmo  Calkins  and  Ralph  Holden 

Money  and  Banking,  by  John  Thorn  Holdsworth 

The  Modern  Bank,  by  Amos  K.  Fiske 

The  Work  of  Wall  Street,  by  Sereno  S.  Pratt 

Funds  and  Their  Uses,  by  Frederick  A.  Cleveland 

Credit  and  Its  Uses,  by  William  A.  Prendergast 

Rural  Credits,  by  Myron  T.  Herrick 

Interest  Tables  and  Formulae,   by  John  G.  Holden 

Financial  Crises,  by  Theodore  E.  Burton 

Corporation  Finance,  by  Edward  S.  Mead 

Trust  Finance,  by  Edward  S.  Mead 

The  Principles  of  Industrial  Management,  by  J.  C.  Duncan 

Modern  Industrialism,  by  Frank  L.  McVey 

Textiles,  by  Paul  H.  Nystrom 

Cost-Keeping  for  Manufacturing  Plants,  by  Sterling  H.  Bunnel 

Modern  Accounting,  by  Henry  Rand  Hatneld 

Accounting  Practice,  by  Clarence  M.  Day 

Elements  of  Accounting,  by  Joseph  J.  Klein 

A  First  Year  in   Bookkeeping  and  Accounting,  by  George  A. 

Macfarland  and  Irving  D.  Rossheim 
American  Corporations,  by  John  J.  Sullivan 
Corporations  and  the  State,  by  Theodore  E.  Burton 
American  Business  Law,  by  John  J.  Sullivan 
The  Essentials  of  Business  Law,  by  Francis  M.  Burdick 
Property  Insurance,  by  Solomon  S.  Huebner 
Life  Insurance,  by  Solomon  S.  Huebner 
The  Life  Insurance  Company,  by  William  Alexander 
Newspaper  Reporting  and  Correspondence,  by  Grant  Milnor  Hyde 
Newspaper  Editing,  by  Grant  Milnor  Hyde 
Practical  Journalism,  by  Edwin  L.  Shuman 
Principles  of  Railroad  Transportation,  by  Emory  R.  Johnson  and 

Thurman  W.  Van  Metre 

Elements  of  Transportation,  by  Emory  R.  Johnson 
Ocean  and  Inland  Water  Transportation,  by  Emory  R.  Johnson 
Railroad  Traffic   and  Rates,  by  Emory  R.  Johnson  and  Grover 

Railroad  Finance,  by  Frederick  A.  Cleveland  and  Fred.  W.  Powell 
Railroad  Administration,  by  Ray  Morris 
Railroad  Accounting,  by  William  E.  Hooper 
Agricultural  Commerce,  by  G.  G.  Huebner 
Irrigation  Management,  by  Frederick  Haynes  Newell 
Irrigation  in  the  United  States,  by  R.  P.  Teele 

New  Volumes  Will  be  Added  to  This  List  at  Frequent  Intervals 
D.  APPLETON  AND  COMPANY,  PUBLISHERS,  NEW  YORK 


'MODERN 
ADVERTISING 


BY 
EARNEST    ELMO    CALKINS 


AND 

RALPH    HOLDEN 


ILLUSTRATED 


NEW   YORK    AND    LONDON 

D.  APPLETON   AND   COMPANY 

1916 


COPYRIGHT,  1905,  BT 
D.  APPLETON  AND  COMPANY 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


FOREWORD 


HEREWITH  is  printed  a  paragraph  from  The 
Americans,  by  Hugo  Miinsterberg;  which  is  so  in 
harmony  with  our  own  idea  as  set  forth  in  the  first 
chapter  (which  chapter  was  written  and  in  type  long 
before  Prof.  Miinsterberg's  book  appeared)  that  it  is 
set  here  as  a  sort  of  keynote  of  Modern  Advertising : 

The  American  merchant  works  for  money  in  ex- 
actly the  sense  that  a  great  painter  works  for  money ; 
the  high  price  which  is  paid  for  his  picture  is  a  very 
welcome  indication  of  the  general  appreciation  of  his 
art:  but  he  would  never  get  this  appreciation  if  he 
were  working  for  the  money  instead  of  his  artistic 
ideals.  Economically  to  open  up  this  gigantic  coun- 
try, to  bring  the  fields  and  forests,  rivers  and  moun- 
tains into  the  service  of  economic  progress,  to  incite 
the  millions  of  inhabitants  to  have  new  needs  and  to 
satisfy  these  by  their  own  resourcefulness,  to  increase 
the  wealth  of  the  nation,  and  finally  economically  to 
rule  the  world  and  within  the  nation  itself  to  raise  the 
economic  power  of  the  individual  to  undreamt-of  im- 
portance, has  been  the  work  which  has  fascinated  the 
American.  And  every  individual  has  felt  his  co- 
operation to  be  ennobled  by  his  firm  belief  in  the 
value  of  such  an  aim  for  the  culture  of  the  world. 

THE  AUTHORS. 


CONTENTS 


FOREWORD 


PAGES 

v 


CHAPTER    I 

A  DEFINITION  OF  ADVERTISING     . 

Advertising  in  its  modern  sense,  1.  Advertising  in  a 
dictionary  sense,  1.  Small  percentage  of  illiteracy  and 
large  number  of  publications,  2.  Napoleon  the  proto- 
type of  the  modern  advertising  man,  3.  Advertising 
as  a  profession,  4.  Patent  medicine  the  first  adverti- 
sing, 5.  Definition  of  advertising,  6.  Advertising  a 
great  educational  force,  7.  Effect  of  advertising  on_x 
the  soda  biscuit,  9.  The  trade-mark  the  great  asset,  9. 
Great  possibilities  in  the  future,  11.  Interest  of  the 
public  in  advertising,  12. 

CHAPTER    II 

A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  ADVERTISING     . 

Advertising  a  recent  development,  13*  Proprietary 
remedies  the  first  large  advertisers,  14.  The  first  adver- 
tising agency,  14.  Some  early  advertising  of  the  New 
York  Ledger,  15.  Recollections  of  John  Manning,  15. 
Pettingill's  impressions  of  Palmer,  16.  Pettingill  a  well- 
known  name  in  connection  with  advertising,  19.  Pet- 
tingill and  Palmer  as  competitors,  20.  Oak  Hall  and 
its  advertising,  21.  Mr.  Bonner  and  the  New  York 
Ledger,  22.  Advertising  Fanny  Fern's  story,  23. 
$27,000  spent  on  advertising  a  single  writer,  23.  P.  T. 
Barnum  advertises  the  Jenny  Lind  concerts,  25.  News- 


Vlll  CONTENTS 

PAGES 

papers  used  exclusively  by  early  agents,  26.  Early 
successes  that  are  to-day  large  advertisers,  27.  Sapolio 
and  Spotless  Town,  28.  Force  and  Sunny  Jim,  29.  The 
real  beginning  of  modern  advertising,  30.  Three  dis- 
tinct professions  in  advertising,  31. 

CHAPTER    III 

THE  CHANNELS  OF  TRADE  .         .         .  33-62 

Two  ways  of  selling  advertised  goods,  33.  Eleven 
leading  retail  lines,  33.  Modern  advertising  breaking 
down  the  relations  between  the  manufacturer  and  the 
retailer,  36.  Chains  of  retail  stores  controlled  by  a 
single  manufacturer,  36.  Standardizing  a  skirt  binding, 
37.  Transformation  of  the  ready-made  clothing  busi- 
ness, 38.  Introduction  of  odd  sizes  in  clothing,  39. 
Large  retailers  refuse  to  sell  trade-marked  clothing,  40. 
An  idea  that  revolutionized  the  clothing  business,  41. 
Improvement  in  the  manufacture  of  clothing  due  to 
advertising,  42.  Figures  of  eleven  retail  industries,  43. 
Modern  advertising  eliminating  the  middleman,  44. 
The  business  triangle,  45.  Cultivation  of  retail  trade 
by  the  manufacturer,  48.  An  experiment  with  a  mail 
series,  49.  Exploiting  a  breakfast  food,  51.  Working 
with  a  small  appropriation,  52.  Playing  the  customer 
off  against  the  dealer,  54.  The  before-taking  and  after- 
taking  idea,  55.  How  a  corset  trade  was  developed  by 
advertising,  56.  The  cost  of  advertising,  58.  Starting 
with  a  small  appropriation,  59.  The  importance  of  the 
inquiry,  60.  Advertising  a  combination  of  hundreds 
of  different  elements,  61. 

CHAPTER    IV 

MAGAZINES  AND  NEWSPAPERS     .         .  63-87 

Definition  of  an  advertising  medium,  63.  Magazines 
compared  with  newspapers,  64.  Circulation  of  various 
kinds  of  publications,  66.  Amount  paid  to  publica- 


CONTENTS  ix 


tions  for  advertising  space,  67.  Classification  of  periodi- 
cals according  to  their  character,  69.  Distribution  of 
circulation,  70.  Character  of  a  publication  as  illustrated 
by  the  Ladies'  Home  Journal,  71.  As  illustrated  by 
Comfort,  73.  History  of  the  Delineator,  74.  Size  of 
magazine  pages,  75.  Rate  compared  with  circulation, 
76.  The  creation  of  the  ten-cent  magazine,  77.  Read- 
ers of  different  publications  vary  in  responsiveness,  79. 
The  magazines  and  circulation  statements,  80.  Defini- 
tion of  newspapers,  81.  Home  prints  and  patent  in- 
sides,  82.  Cooperative  newspapers,  83.  Trade  papers, 
86.  Agricultural  and  religious  papers,  87. 

CHAPTER    V 

MURAL  ADVERTISING        ......     88-101 

Definition  of  mural  or  outdoor  advertising,  88.  Num- 
ber of  street-car  cards  required  for  the  entire  United 
States,  89.  Street-car  advertising  not  combined  in 
the  hands  of  one  agent,  91.  Sizes  of  street-car  cards, 
92.  Circulation  of  street-car  cards,  93.  Sizes  of 
posters,  94.  Permanent  painted  signs,  96.  High 
prices  paid  for  painted  signs,  98.  Printed  matter  as 
advertising  mediums,  98.  A  house  organ,  100.  Ad- 
vertising novelties,  101. 

CHAPTER    VI 

THE  GENERAL  ADVERTISER 102-134 

Definition  of  a  general  advertiser,  102.  Some  large  gen- 
eral advertisers,  103.  The  beginning  of  textile  adver- 
tising, 104.  The  experience  of  Thomas  Balmer,  105. 
The  advertising  of  H-O,  106.  The  beginning  of  flake- 
food  advertising,  107.  Advertising  pioneers,  108.  Un- 
developed possibilities  in  advertising,  109.  Food  prod- 
ucts that  should  be  advertised,  111.  The  chances 
for  a  canned  molasses,  112.  Publicity  that  might  be 
had  for  salt,  113.  Starch  an  early  magazine  advertiser, 


CONTENTS 

PAGES 

114.  The  advertising  beginning  of  the  American 
Woolen  Company,  115.  Unthought-of  fields  to  be  de- 
veloped by  advertising,  118.  Products  that  have  been 
advertised  for  forty  years,  120.  Railroads  as  general 
advertisers,  120.  Volume  of  magazine  advertising  for 
a  given  month,  120.  Advertised  articles  must  have 
merit,  122.  Quality  more  important  than  price,  124. 
Direct  returns  not  possible  in  general  publicity,  125. 
The  value  of  a  trade-mark,  126.  Some  baking  powder 
history,  127.  Mellin's  Food  a  typical  advertising 
instance,  129.  Stories  behind  advertising  successes,  133. 


CHAPTER    VII 

THE  ADVERTISING  MANAGER  .....  135-160 
What  the  advertising  manager  does,  135.  The  ability 
to  write  not  necessary,  136.  Seymour  Eaton  and  the 
Booklovers  Library,  138.  American  advertising  in 
Great  Britain,  139.  Salaries  paid  to  advertising  man- 
agers, 143.  The  advertisement  writer  as  such,  143. 
What  the  advertising  manager  should  know,  144. 
Misleading  impressions  about  the  advertising  manager, 
147.  Training  that  makes  a  successful  advertising 
man,  148.  Correspondence  schools  of  advertising, 
151.  The  advertising  man's  training,  152.  Antagoni- 
zing the  retail  trade,  153.  Planning  work  in  cooperation 
with  an  agency,  154.  Steps  in  preparing  a  campaign, 
155.  Working  with  traveling  men,  156.  Origin  of 
Sunny  Jim  in  Force  advertising,  158.  The  advertising 
manager  must  produce  exact  results,  160. 

CHAPTER    VIII 

THE  GENERAL  ADVERTISING  AGENCY        .          .          .      161-219 
Inadequacy  of  the  name  "agency,"  161.     Is  the  agent 
the  agent  of  the  publisher  or  of  the  advertiser?  161. 
The  agent  not  an  employee  of  the  publication,   162. 
The  commission  basis  unsatisfactory  and  illogical,  163.  # 


CONTENTS  Xi 

PAGES 

How  good  advertisers  are  discouraged  by  bad  agents, 
164.  The  Quoin  Club,  164.  The  advertising  agent 
and  the  plan,  165.  What  the  advertising  agent  should 
know,  166.  George  Dyer  on  advertising  agencies,  167. 
The  agent  should  be  unprejudiced,  171.  The  adver- 
tising agent  has  nothing  to  sell,  172.  The  old  andt" 
the  modern  idea  of  an  advertising  agency,  173.  Space 
brokers,  174.  .ZWhy  the  commission  is  illogical,  175. 
How  the  price  for  space  is  cut,  176.  Service  as  against 
price-cutting  in  agency  work,  177.  Contract  publica- 
tions, 178.  Form  of  contract  of  the  Curtis  Publishing 
Company,  179.  A  typical  estimate,  180.  Estimates 
and  rate-cards,  182.  Estimating  from  newspaper  rate- 
cards,  185.  Dickering  with  newspapers,  186.  A  news- 
paper rate-card,  186.  Need  of  a  flat  rate  among 
newspapers,  191.  Order  for  space,  192.  Checking  up 
advertising,  193.  Old-time  agencies  are  loose  organiza- 
tions, 194.  Two  classes  of  general  advertisers,  195. 
How  an  agent  works  upon  a  new  proposition,  196. 
Coining  a  name,  197.  Fixing  the  price,  198.  Appro- 
priation, 199.  The  modern  agency  renders  professional 
service,  200.  A  representative  and  comprehensive  plan 
and  estimates  as  presented  by  a  modern  agency,  201. 


CHAPTER    IX 

RETAIL  ADVERTISING 220-244 

Definition  of  retail  advertising,  220.  Pay  and  work 
of  the  retail  advertising  manager,  221.  Amount  spent 
in  advertising  by  leading  retailers,  222.  Gillam  and  the 
Wanamaker  style  of  advertising,  224.  Beginning  of 
the  Wanamaker  store  advertising,  226.  Difficulty  of 
getting  good  illustrations,  228.  Wanamaker  and  the 
fakir,  229.  The  Wanamaker  style  older  than  the 
Wanamaker  store,  230.  Different  styles  in  different 
cities,  232.  Principal  shopping  days  of  the  week,  232. 
Daily  routine  of  the  advertising  manager,  235.  Error 
in  price  made  by  the  paper,  236.  Window-dressing, 


xii  CONTENTS 

PAGES 

238.  The  retail  clothing  advertising  of  Rogers,  Peet  & 
Company,  239.  Fictitious  business  firm  names,  240. 
A  uniform  style  of  advertising,  241.  Retail  advertising 
depends  upon  direct  results,  241.  Local  retail  adver- 
tising varies  in  different  cities,  242.  The  work  of  a 
retail  advertising  syndicate,  243.  Local  monopolies 
which  can  and  do  use  retail  advertising,  244. 


CHAPTER   X 

MAIL-ORDER  ADVERTISING 245-260 

Definition  and  growth  of  mail-order  advertising,  245. 
Three-fourths  of  the  United  States  population  live 
in  the  country,  246.  Great  mail-order  houses,  247. 
History  of  Sears,  Roebuck  &  Company,  247.  Stimu- 
lus of  rural  free  delivery,  248.  Statistics  of  rural  free 
delivery,  249.  Mail-order  papers,  250.  Direct  results, 
252.  Kind  of  copy  required,  253.  Catalogue  houses, 
254.  Follow-up  matter,  255.  Pulling  power  of  various 
advertisements,  256.  Letter  brokerage,  257.  Fraud 
orders,  258.  Correspondence  schools,  259. 

CHAPTER    XI 

THE  MATHEMATICS  OF  ADVERTISING  .  .  .  261-305 
Exact  results  required  by  the  modern  advertiser,  261.^ 
Inducements  offered  to  bring  replies,  262.  Booklets 
sent  in  return  for  names  of  dealers,  263.  Keying  ads, 
264.  The  corner  coupon,  266.  The  cost  of  replies,  268. 
Testing  general  advertising,  270.  The  before-taking 
and  after-taking  idea,  271.  Psychology  of  the  Sunny 
Jim  impression,  273.  Power  of  a  large  appropriation, 
275.  Establishing  a  catch-phrase,  276.  Psychology 
of  advertising  by  Professor  Scott,  278.  Psychology  a 
guide  for  the  advertiser,  280.  Advertising  that  appeals 
to  the  sense  of  taste,  282.  Mental  habits  and  adver- 
tising, 283.  Advertising  statistics  not  sufficiently  com- 
plete, 285.  Reaching  the  rich,  286.  The  silent  major- 


CONTENTS  xiii 

PAGES 

fty,  289.  General  publicity  and  direct  advertising,  290. 
Classifying  the  readers  of  a  publication,  291.  The 
Northwestern  Agriculturist  investigation,  292.  Baking- 
powder  investigation,  293.  Toilet-soap  investigation, 
294.  Breakfast  foods  and  watches,  295.  The  investi- 
gation of  the  Butterick  Trio,  296.  Results  from  the 
one  item  of  hosiery,  297.  The  lessons  to  be  learned,  299. 
The  growth  of  food  advertising,  302.  Vital  statistics 
and  their  relation  to  advertising,  304. 

CHAPTER    XII 

STYLES  OP  ADVERTISING 306-332 

What  kind  of  copy  to  use,  306.  Stupid  imitation,  307. 
Good  type  styles,  309.  Designed  type  style,  311.  The 
mail-order  style,  313.  Line  drawing  and  good  printing, 
315.  Using  a  face  for  a  trade-mark,  317.  The  jingle 
in  advertising,  320.  Spotless  Town,  324.  Good  and 
bad  verse  advertising,  326.  The  Sunny  Jim  verses,  327. 
Jingles  as  collateral  advertising,  328.  Phoebe  Snow  and 
the  Road  of  Anthracite,  330. 

CHAPTER    XIII 

SOME  MECHANICAL  DETAILS 333-353 

The  agate  line,  333.  Width  of  newspaper  columns,  334. 
Magazine  sizes,  335.  Original  half-tones  and  electro- 
types, 336.  Photography  and  models,  337.  The  half- 
tone cut,  338.  Making  designs  for  reduction,  340. 
Wood  engraving  and  lithography,  341.  Distributing 
newspaper  advertising  plates,  342.  A  knowledge  of 
type  bodies  not  necessary  to  an  advertiser,  344.  Types 
used  in  advertising,  345.  Sizes  of  type,  346.  Electro- 
typing,  347.  Display,  348.  Obsolete  terms,  349.  Dum- 
mies for  booklets  and  catalogues,  350.  Printed  matter 
351.  Novelties,  352.  Rate-cards,  353. 

INDEX  .  355 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


PAGE 

A  Clothing  Cut  Made  Only  Twelve  Years  Ago    ...  42 

An  Example  of  Early  Clothing  Designing         ...  44 

The  Business  Triangle 45 

Modern  Designing  as  Applied  to  Clothing  Advertising       .  46 

Mailing  Card         .                    50 

Map  Showing  Relative  Density  of  Circulation  Over  the 

Entire  United  States 65 

Map  Showing  the  Number  of  Inhabitants  to  Each  Weekly 

Publication 67 

Map  Showing  that  Ten  States  Possess  81.08  Per  Cent  of 

the  Combined  Circulation  of  all  Publications     .          .  68 
Map  Showing  the  Number  of  Inhabitants  to  Each  Daily 

Publication 70 

A  Double  Street-Car  Card 92 

A  Single  Street-Car  Card 93 

Diagram  Showing  Sizes  and  Arrangement  of  Posters  from 

a  1-Sheet  to  a  24-Sheet 95 

A  Painted  Wall 97 

A  Painted  Sign  or  Bulletin 99 

The  First  Advertisement  of  the  American  Woolen  Com- 
pany    .........  117 

A  Typical  Advertisement  of  Seymour  Eaton     .          .          .  141 

A  "  Powers  "  Magazine  Advertisement     ....  145 

The  Silhouette  Effectively  Used  in  Newspaper  Advertising  198 

A  Modern  Clothing  Advertisement   .....  205 

Photograph  from  Still  Life  Used  in  a  Magazine  Adver- 
tisement   210 

Atmosphere  in  a  Magazine  Half-page  Advertisement  .  211 
Character  as  Shown  by  Photography  .  .  .  .217 
Catchy  Style  for  Trade-Paper  Advertising  .  .  .218 


xvi  LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


The  Philadelphia  Style  of  Department-Store  Advertising  223 
The  Chicago  Style  of  Department-Store  Advertising  .          .231 

The  New  York  Style  of  Department-Store  Advertising     .  233 

The  Boston  Style  of  Department-Store  Advertising  .          .  237 

The  Rogers,  Peet  Style 239 

A  High-Class  Mail-Order  Advertisement   .          .          .          .251 

A  Typical  Mail-Order  Advertisement       ....  254 

An  Inducement  to  Write  is  Offered       ....  262 

An  Unusual  Name  is  Given  to  the  Booklet.     No  Key       .  263 

An  Advertisement  in  Which  a  Book  of  Recipes  is  Offered     .  264 

Forms  of  Coupons 265 

Forms  of  Coupons 267 

A   Page   Magazine   Advertisement  Showing  Coupon   At- 
tached .          .          .      ' 269 

The  Original  Form  of  the  "Sunny  Jim"  Advertising         .  271 

Style  Adopted  the  Second  Year 272 

Style  Used  the  Third  Year 273 

A  Magazine  Advertisement  in  which  the  Booklet  is  the  Sub- 
ject of  the  Advertisement          .....  304 
An  Advertisement  in  Type  Only      .          .          .          .          .  307 
An  Example  of  the  Narrative  Style  of  Copy          .          .  308 
An  Example  of  Simple  Type  Style  and  Very  Convincing 

Copy 310 

A   Magazine   Advertisement  Consisting  of  Reasons  and 

Type       . 311 

Another  Example  of  the  "Powers"  Style          .          .          .312 
Type  Style  Invented  by  an  Advertiser  .          .          .313 

An  Effectual  Mail-Order  Advertisement  .          .                    .  314 
A    Magazine    Advertisement    Used    for    Years    Without 

Change 315 

The  First  Step  from  a  Type  Style  is  the  Use  of  a  Border     .  316 
A  Style  of  Designing  Especially  Adapted  to  Newspapers 

and  Poorly  Printed  Magazines         ....  318 

Magazine  Advertisement  Showing  Good  Printing  Qualities  319 

A  Modern  Magazine  Advertisement         ....  320 

Clean,  Open  Cut  Which  Cannot  Fill  Up  and  Blot     .          .  321 

An  Early  Example  of  Corset  Advertising         .          .          .  322 

Advertisement  Identified  by  the  Portrait  of  the  Advertiser  323 

A  Modern  Corset  Advertisement     .....  324 

Jingles  and  Silhouettes  Used  for  Distribution  in  Packages  329 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS  xvii 

PAGE 

One  of  the  Lackawanna  Street-Car  Cards        .          .          .331 
Photography  from  a  Model  Used  as  an  Effective  Booklet 

Cover 335 

Diagram  Showing  the  Screen  in  Half-Tone  Work     .          .     337 
Diagram  Illustrating  Reduction  in  Photographs  and  Draw- 
ings  340 

Strong  Display  for  Newspaper  Advertisements         .          .341 


MODERN   ADVERTISING 


CHAPTER   I 

A   DEFINITION    OF    ADVERTISING 

THIS  book  treats  of  advertising  in  its  modern 
sense.  By  advertising  is  meant  that  commercial  force, 
which,  within  a  few  years  and  in  this  country,  has 
become  a  most  powerful  factor  in  the  development  of 
many  of  the  largest  and  most  profitable  industries. 

No  definition  of  advertising  is  here  possible  ex- 
cept as  this  entire  book  may  be  accepted  as  a  defini- 
tion. So  rapidly  has  advertising  advanced  through 
its  various  changes  that  even  the  latest  dictionaries 
and  encyclopedias  are  out  of  date  in  their  attempts  ' 
to  define  it.  The  advertising  of  yesterday  is  not  the 
advertising  of  to-day.  Men  not  very  old  have  wit- 
nessed the  entire  development  of  modern  advertising 
from  being  an  untrustworthy  instrument  of  quacks 
and  charlatans  to  its  place  as  an  engine  in  the  conduct 
and  expansion  of  business.  According  to  various  esti- 
mates the  amount  of  money  spent  to-day  in  America 
for  advertising  ranges  from  six  hundred  to  one  thou- 
sand million  dollars  a  year. 

Advertising  in  the  dictionary  sense  of  the  word 
has  a  history  as  old  as  that  of  the  human  race.  Just 


•',''•  -;2/;  sj  .•'•/;.':   MODERN  ADVERTISING 


as  soon  as  there  were  more  than  two  people  in  the 
world  some  sort  of  formal  announcement  had -to  be 
made  by  one  to  the  other.  The  early  history  of  such 
announcements, — from  the  first  use  of  the  human 
voice  to  the  beginning  of  pictorial  and  lettered  in- 
scriptions, from  posters  to  the  discovery  of  printing., 
and  from  the  advent  of  printing  to  the  beginning  of 
real  advertising, — is  of  interest  only  to  the  archeolo- 
gist.  It  is  of  no  value  to  the  business  man.  It  would 
be  of  less  assistance  to  the  understanding  and  appre- 
ciation of  modern  adA^ertising  than  the  legal  tender 
used  by  the  ancient  Phenicians  would  be  to  compre- 
hending the  principles  of  modern  finance.  Real  ad- 
vertising began  when  methods  of  printing  had  been 
so  perfected  as  to  make  it  possible  to  multiply  almost 
indefinitely  the  number  of  copies  of  a  periodical 
which  might  be  circulated. 

This  nation  has  reached  a  point  where  only  a 
small  fraction  of  the  people  are  unable  to  read.  The 
American  people  are  quick  to  learn  and  to  use  what 
they  learn/?  Their  mental  activity  demands  a  large 
supply  of  periodical  literature.  That  demand  has 
been  supplied  by  over  twenty  thousand  periodicals, 
some  of  them  with  circulations  of  from  five  hundred 
thousand  to  a  million.  These  are  the  reasons  why 
advertising  has  found  its  greatest  and  most  rapid  de- 
velopment in  the  United  States,  and  why  other  coun- 
tries may  be  practically  ignored  in  a  book  of  this  kind. 

Napoleon,  following  Barere,  contemptuously  called 
England  a  nation  of  shopkeepers.  England  keeps 
shop  as  well  as  the  United  States.  The  reason  why 
she  can  not  keep  shop  as  effectively  as  we  is  largely 
because  she  can  not  "  talk  shop  "  as  well.  The  same 


A  DEFINITION  OF  ADVERTISING  3 

Napoleon  who  sneered  at  England's  commercialism 
said  that  four  hostile  newspapers  were  more  to  ]>e 
dreaded  than  a  thousand  bayonets.  Here  is  the  real 
reason  for  our  commercial  supremacy.  Napoleon 
sneered  at  shopkeeping  but  bowed  to  the  power  of 
the  press.  America  has  forged  from  her  press  a 
power  which  has  helped  to  make  her  shopkeeping  the 
most  wonderful  in  the  world.  The  shop  and  the 
newspaper  joined  forces  and  the  result  is  modern 
advertising. 

Napoleon  himself  is  the  fairest  prototype  of  the 
advertising  man.  His  work  and  his  methods  were 
different,  but  the  elemental  qualities  are  the  same. 
With  the  passing  away  of  Napoleon,  passed  from  the 
modern  world  the  opportunities  for  such  work  as  his. 
Other  fields  were  left,  however,  for  the  man  like  him 
with  genius  for  organization,  knowledge  of  human 
nature,  capacity  for  tireless  study  of  causes  and  ef- 
fects, of  conditions  and  remedies.  Such  men  have 
gone  into  business,  and  with  their  advent  business  has 
been  elevated  to  a  field  of  endeavor  greater  in  its 
rewards  than  any  other  offered  by  the  world  to-day. 
Such  men  found  business  commonplace  and  petty, 
but  made  it  a  profession;  they  introduced  into  it  the 
ability  and  methods  that  formerly  had  changed  the 
world's  maps,  founded  dynasties,  and  created  polit- 
ical parties. 

The  story  of  a  Peter  the  Hermit,  or  a  Savonarola, 
fiercely  'and  earnestly  impressing  a  crowd  with  his 
convictions,  is  thrilling.  The  Peters  and  Savonarolas 
of  to-day  are  teaching  the  nation  to  think  differently 
and  act  differently.  Advertising  has  come  to  mean 
not  merely  the  printed  -announcement  of  the  merits 


4  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

of  an  article  or  an  institution,  but  that  high  and  un- 
usual power  of  impressing  a  great  number  of  people 
with  a  given  idea. 

The  technical  knowledge  possessed  by  the  suc- 
cessful advertising  man  is  important  and  is  made  up. 
of  many  things.  That  knowledge  in  itself  is  not  ad- 
vertising, but  the  tools  of  the  trade.  It  has  no  more 
to  do  with  making  the  successful  advertiser  than 
knowledge  of  tactics,  entrenchments  and  the  manual 
of  arms  makes  the  successful  general,  or  than  famil- 
iarity with  judicial  procedure  makes  the  successful 
lawyer.  Advertising  is  that  subtle,  indefinable,  but 
powerful  force  whereby  the  advertiser  creates  a  de- 
mand for  a  given  article  in  the  minds  of  a  great  many 
people  or  arouses  the  demand  that  is  already  there 
in  latent  form. 

The  fact  that  many  successful  advertisers  do  not 
know,  or  do  not  appreciate,  these  things,  means  noth- 
ing. Advertising  has  been  successful  far  beyond  the 
expectations,  certainly  beyond  the  knowledge,  of 
many  who  produced  it.  There  are  many  working  elec- 
tricians who,  while  familiar  with  all  the  practical  re- 
quirements of  their  work,  are  ignorant  of  the  actual 
nature  of  electricity.  So  with  the  advertiser.  Neither 
the  man  who  creates  advertising  space  by  building  up 
a  medium,  nor  the  man  who  has  made  a  world-wide 
market  for  his  product  by  using  such  mediums,  has 
appreciated  the  real  nature  of  the  force  employed. 

Here  enters  the  advertising  expert,  the  man  who 
studies  the  causes  for  these  great  successes  with  the 
idea  of  applying  them  to  other  articles  and  other  mar- 
kets. It  is  for  him  to  eliminate  as  far  as  possible  the 
uncertainty,  the  waste,  the  non-essentials;  to  change 


A  DEFINITION  OF  ADVERTISING  5 

advertising  from  an  art  to  a  science — or,  at  least,  to 
a  profession  worthy  of  the  ambition  and  energy  of 
trained  minds. 

There  was  a  time  when  the  profession  of  an  ad- 
vertising man  ranked  but  little  higher  than  that  of 
a  fakir  or  a  charlatan,  just  as  there  was  a  time  when 
nearly  all  advertising  was  more  or  less  untrustworthy. 
Beginning,  as  it  did,  with  the  exploitation  of  patent 
remedies,  and  carried,  as  it  was,  by  tremendous  suc- 
cess into  the  exploitation  of  remedies  that  were 
worthless,  the  possibilities  of  the  use  of  printers'  ink 
grew  faster  than  the  realization  of  the  commercial 
value  of  its  use. 

The  first  on  the  ground  were  soldiers  of  fortune, 
adventurous  men  who  soon  overran  the  country  with 
patent-medicine  advertising  of  every  sort,  to  such  an 
extent,  and  with  such  disproportionate  results,  that, 
to-day,  the  advertising  of  proprietary  remedies  does 
not  stand  on  the  same  high  plane  as  the  advertising  of 
commercial  articles  and,  possibly,  never  will.  The 
advertising  of  manufactured  articles — the  real  bone 
and  sinew  of  commerce — is  to-day  the  great  field  in 
which  the  best  energy  and  best  ability  are  being  used. 
Young  men  of  the  sort  who  do  things,  who,  in  any 
other  country,  would  fill  places  in  the  church,  or  state, 
in  diplomacy  or  the  army,  and  who  in  any  other  age 
would  be  makers  of  history,  are  the  ones  who  to-day 
are  building  up  the  circulation  of  publications  con- 
verting them  into  assets  of  great  value,  and  who  are 
making  the  names  and  trade-marks  of  articles  adver- 
tised vastly  valuable. 

As  men  with  better  training  and  higher  mental 
powers  became  identified  with  it  and  as  advertising 


6  MODERN  ADVERTISING  , 

itself,  under  their  handling,  developed  greater  possi- 
bilities, the  profession  of  an  advertising  man  steadily 
rose  until  now  it  aspires  to  rank  with  that  of  the  three 
"  black  graces  " — law,  medicine  and  divinity.  Some 
day  the  advertising  man,  in  all  that  that  term  implies, 
expects  to  be  recognized  as  a  member  in  one  of  the 
professions. 

Advertising  is  a  force  whereby  a  keen-eyed  man, 
controlling  a  desirable  output  from  a  great  factory, 
secures  for  it  the  widest  possible  market  by  utilizing 
every  form  of  publicity,  and  every  method  of  making 
an  impression  upon  the  public;  who  watches  its  sales 
on  the  one  hand  and  its  publicity  on  the  other;  who, 
like  a  train-despatcher  in  his  watch-tower,  keeps  a  con- 
stant and  thoughtful  hand  on  the  pulse  of  the  market, 
knows  exactly  what  his  advertising  is  accomplishing 
and  what  it  is  failing  to  accomplish,  knows  where  to 
strengthen  it  and  where  to  weaken  it;  who,  consider- 
ing the  entire  country  as  a  whole,  adapts  his  adver- 
tising to  each  locality,  pushes  his  products  where  such 
products  may  be  sold,  and  leaves  uncultivated  the 
places  where  no  possible  market  may  be  made.  He 
knows  something  of  salesmanship,  something  of  the 
law  of  supply  and  demand,  a  great  deal  of  human  na- 
ture and  the  best  methods  of  appealing  to  it;  has  a 
vivid,  instinctive  sense  of  the  power  of  repeated  im- 
pression; knows  something  of  the  force  of  striking 
display,  whether  expressed  in  color  on  outdoor  post- 
ers and  street-car  cards,  or  in  black  and  white  and  in 
type  in  magazines  and  newspapers,  and  uses  these  as 
*a  means  to  his  end. 

Such  a  man,  realizing  that  there  are  in  this  coun- 
try so  many  mouths  to  be  fed,  so  many  hands  and 


A  DEFINITION  OF  ADVERTISING  7 

faces  to  be  washed,  so  many  bodies  to  be  clothed,  so 
many  feet  to  be  shod,  makes  a  breakfast  food,  a  soap, 
a  brand  of  clothing  or  a  shoe,  and  then  launches  out 
boldly,  remembering  that  just  as  long  as  people  con- 
tinue to  be  born  and  grow  up  there  will  be  more 
mouths,  more  hands,  more  faces,  more  bodies  and 
more  feet;  and  until  the  sum  of  human  wants  be 
changed,  there  will  be  the  same  steady  demands  and 
needs.  He  then  proceeds  to  find  means  for  making 
his  article  in  every  home  and  every  mind  a  synonym 
for  something  which  will  supply  one  of  these  wants. 
He  realizes  to  its  fullest  extent  what  a  mighty  engine 
is  advertising.  Advertising  modifies  the  course  of  a 
people's  daily  thoughts,  gives  them  new  words  and 
phrases,  new  ideas,  new  fashions,  new  prejudices  and 
new  customs.  In  the  same  way  it  obliterates  old  sets 
of  words  and  phrases,  fashions  and  customs. 

Twenty  years  ago  no  one  ate  a  breakfast  food 
other  than  crude  oatmeal  which  the  grocer  sold  from 
a  barrel.  To-day,  breakfast  foods  identified  by  name 
and  package,  clean  and  nourishing,  have  become  as 
staple  as  milk  or  bread.  Five  years  ago  no  one 
thought  of  asking  for  a  cracker  or  soda-biscuit  by 
name.  To-day,  one  company  has  made  its  products 
household  words. 

It  may  be  doubted  if  any  other  one  force,  the 
public-school  system,  the  church  and  the  daily  press 
excepted,  is  acquiring  so  great  an  influence  as  adver- 
tising. To  it  we  largely  owe  the  prevalence  of  good 
roads,  rubber  tires,  open  plumbing,  sanitary  under- 
wear, water  filters,  hygienic  waters,  biscuit  wrapped 
in  moisture-proof  packages,  and  breakfast  foods  at 
low  prices,  well  prepared.  These  are  only  a  few  of 


g  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

the  things  which  the  public  has  been  taught  to  use, 
to  believe  in  and  to  demand. 

The  people  who  buy  these  things  do  not  write  to 
the  advertisers,  who  are  practically  unknown  to  them. 
They  are  the  customers  of  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
retail  stores  all  over  the  country; — people  who  come 
and  ask  for  the  articles  they  have  seen  advertised  and 
who  continue  to  buy  them.  They  buy,  believe  and 
think  the  things  that  the  advertiser  wants  them  to 
buy,  believe  and  think.  The  man  who  can  so  plan 
his  advertising  work  as  to  bring  about  these  results 
exercises  professional  ability  of  a  high  order. 

By  trade-marking  a  number  of  necessary  articles, 
such  as  foods,  wearing  apparel  and  soaps,  and  making 
them  so  well  known  that  they  become  staple,  the 
methods  of  commerce  have  been  simplified  beyond 
belief.  Every  man  engaged  in  buying  and  selling 
such  goods  is  now  able  to  perform  the  same  transac- 
tion in  less  time  than  formerly.  Take,  for  instance, 
the  soda-biscuit.  Formerly  it  was  supplied  loose,  in 
bulk  from  a  barrel,  from  which  the  grocer  weighed 
out  the  necessary  quantity.  The  method  was  un- 
cleanly and  unsanitary,  and  crispness  was  lost.  It  re- 
quired an  unnecessary  number  of  handlings  which 
took  time  and  were  distasteful.  The  name,  soda-bis- 
cuit, meant  several  kinds  of  biscuit  in  bulk;  the  cus- 
tomer seldom  knew  them  apart;  the  most  intelligent 
thing  she  could  do  was  to  point  them  out. 

To-day,  the  same  housewife  is  familiar  with  the 
name  of  a  biscuit  in  a  package,  wrapped  first  in  a  sani- 
tary, waxed,  air-  and  moisture-proof  wrapper,  then  in 
a  compact,  handy  carton,  and  finally  in  a  decorative 
wrapper.  This  package  would  now  be  recognized  by 


A  DEFINITION  OF  ADVERTISING  9 

a  large  percentage  of  the  population  of  the  United 
States  at  a  glance.  The  housewife  simply  gives  to 
the  grocer  the  name  of  that  particular  biscuit;  and 
the  grocer  takes  down  the  package.  The  price  is  no 
higher  than  was  paid  formerly  for  biscuit  in  bulk. 
The  package  will  keep  indefinitely  and  a  small  part 
of  the  grocer's  time  only  has  been  occupied  in  wait- 
ing upon  his  customer.  The  grocer,  when  sending 
his  order  to  the  jobber  or  giving  it  to  the  "  drummer," 
asks  for  so  many  cases  of  this  cracker  and  nothing 
more  need  be  said.  Thus  the  work  of  selling  is  sim- 
plified. Here  we  see  only  one  of  the  commercial 
changes  wrought  by  advertising. 

The  same  house  which  manufactures  soda-biscuit 
has  been  able,  by  advertising,  tremendously  to  in- 
crease its  output.  This  increase  of  output  has  cut 
down  the  cost  of  manufacture.  The  maker  is  able 
to  supply  more  and  better  goods  for  the  same  money, 
the  goods  have  a  wider  circulation,  are  better  known 
and  a  higher  standard  is  kept.  The  maker  can  not  I/ 
afford  to  allow  his  product  to  deteriorate  in  any  way; 
it  has  become  known  for  its  excellence  through  the 
advertising,  and  it  must  live  up  to  that  excellence. 
Advertising  implies  a  contract  between  the  maker 
and  the  public  always  to  deliver  the  same  goods  under 
that  same  name.  The  name  has  become  the  greatest^ 
asset.  It  may  represent  millions  in  publicity — pub- 
licity that  has  been  obtained  through  advertising 
alone.  Only  the  initiated  can  realize  the  amount  of 
work  that  such  a  plan,  successfully  carried  out,  en- 
tails. 

The  means  through  which  .such  knowledge  reaches 
the  public  represents  nearly  every  form  of  advertis- 


10  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

ing.  It  represents  advertising  in  newspapers  and 
magazines;  announcements  in  the  trade  papers  which 
are  read  by  the  grocer  and  other  dealers;  posters  upon 
housetops,  near  the  sites  of  great  railroads,  upon 
hoardings  around  buildings  in  the  process  of  construc- 
tion, upon  the  stands  of  elevated  and  other  railway- 
stations;  electric  signs  on  the  tops  of  tall  buildings; 
names  on  sails  of  coasting  and  fishing  vessels;  printed 
matter  of  every  kind  sent  to  the  jobber,  to  his  salesr 
man,  to  the  grocer  and  to  the  consumer;  costly  litho- 
graphs inserted  between  the  pages  of  magazines,  the 
circulation  of  each  of  which  may  be  a  half  million  * 
designing  a  package  so  individual  and  characteristic 
that  it  will  be  recognized  at  a  glance  and  will  form  an 
advertisement  as  it  stands;  the  coining  of  a  name  that 
is  unique  without  being  grotesque,  and  so  euphonious 
that  it  may  be  learned  easily  and  will  become  a  part 
of  the  familiar  vocabulary  of  the  people. 

In  addition  to  these  things,  advertising  requires 
an  army  of  men  to  carry  out  the  plans.  Every  part 
of  the  work  must  be  mapped  out.  The  salesmen  who 
sell  the  product  are  only  one  contingent.  The  chain 
of  jobbers  who  supply  retail  grocers  everywhere  are 
part  of  the  plan.  The  grocer  must  be  supplied,  not 
only  with  goods  to  put  upon  his  shelf,  but  with  attrac- 
tive counter  slips,  "hangers,"  window-cards,  "cut- 
outs/' posters  and  other  forms  of  lithographed  matter, 
which  will  appeal  to  the  eye  and  make  an  impression 
upon  the  minds  of  buyers.  All  this  matter  must 
be  prepared,  packed  and  sent  out  so  as  to  reach  the 
grocer  at  the  appointed  time.  Then  there  is  the  work 
of  preparing  designs  for  magazines  and  newspapers, 
lithographs  for  posters  and  street-car  cards,  and  get- 


A  DEFINITION  OF  ADVERTISING  H 

ting  them  to  their  proper  destination  and  displayed  in 
the  proper  way.  The  entire  machinery  must  be  kept 
in  motion  year  after  year. 

This  is  the  nearest  one  can  come  to  a  definition  of 
modern  advertising.  It  is  as  hard  to  obtain  an  idea 
of  what  advertising  really  is  from  a  description  of  the 
machinery  by  which  it  is  accomplished,  as  it  is  to  ob- 
tain one  of  the  nature  of  electricity  by  a  visit  to  a 
power-house.  Thinking  men  have  begun  to  recog- 
nize it  as  a  great  force,  which  depends  much  on  con- 
stant repetition  and  on  habits  of  thought.  Constant 
repetition  of  one  idea  before  a  certain  number  of  peo- 
ple will  at  last  impress  that  idea  upon  those  people's 
minds.  People  who  get  into  the  habit  of  buying  a 
certain  thing  are  apt  to  continue  the  habit.  If  a  cer- 
tain set  of  people  may  be  persuaded  to  buy  a  given 
article  at  a  given  price,  another  set  of  people  may  be 
induced  to  do  the  same  thing.  If  people  have  been 
persuaded  to  buy  such  an  article  and  find  their  expec- 
tations fulfilled,  and  it  is  an  article  which  they  are 
in  the  habit  of  needing  constantly,  they  are  apt  to  go 
on  purchasing  the  article  indefinitely.  It  is  upon  this 
habit  that  the  ultimate  profits  of  publicity  mainly 
depend. 

No  estimate  of  the  future  of  advertising  perhaps 
would  be  excessive.  No  modern  field  of  industry 
shows  larger  possibilities  of  development.  The  work 
of  the  present  day,  skilful  and  intelligent  as  it  is,  is  a 
beginning.  Despite  the  number  of  experts  at  work, 
advertising  to-day  is  by  no  means  as  thorough  and 
effective  as  it  should  be.  Hundreds  of  millions  of 
dollars  are  spent  annually.  Many  of  these  millions 
are  spent  wasteful  ly. 


12  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

Advertising  is  at  present  an  art;  it  has  not  yet 
reached  its  place  as  an  exact  science.  There  are  many 
men  who  know  how  to  play  skilfully  upon  the  preju- 
dices, tastes,  likes  and  habits  of  a  nation;  but  there 
is  not  yet  a  man  who  can  tell  definitely  how  much 
publicity  any  given  dollar  will  buy.  Possibly  there 
never  will  be  such  a  man.  Still,  advertising  is  daily 
approaching  a  state  of  greater  exactness.  The  best 
advertisers  have  their  advertising  campaigns  so  well 
in  hand  that  they  are  almost  sure  to  produce  certain 
results.  To  obtain  this  experience  and  knowledge 
they  have  spent  fortunes  in  money  and  years  in  e,x- 
perience. 

An  indirect  effect  of  modern  advertising  is  the 
increasing  interest  taken  in  it  by  the  public.  Adver- 
tising becomes  more  and  more  effective  just  as  more 
and  more  people  become  interested  in  it, — in  the  ad- 
vertising itself,  that  is,  as  well  as  in  the  articles  ad- 
vertised. This  awakened  state  of  mind,  which  is 
making  it  both  harder  and  easier  to  succeed  to-day,  is 
shown  in  the  increasing  circulation  of  trade  papers 
devoted  to  advertising,  in  the  eagerness  with  which 
articles  on  advertising  in  popular  publications  are ' 
read,  in  the  appearance  of  a  greater  number  of  books 
about  advertising,  and  in  the  rapid  multiplication  of 
correspondence  schools  devoted  wholly  or  in  part  to 
advertising. 


CHAPTER   H 

A   BRIEF    HISTORY    OF    ADVERTISING 

IT  would  be  more  interesting  than  profitable  to 
the  purpose  of  this  book  to  give  a  history  of  adver- 
tising. The  entire  narrative  from  the  first  spoken 
announcement  down  to  within  the  last  fifty  years, 
or  even  later,  would  be  of  no  value  to  the  advertising 
man  of  to-day.  Advertising,  as  we  understand  it,  is 
a  development  of  the  past  half  century,  and  advertis- 
ing in  that  sense  is  the  subject  for  discussion  in  this 
book. 

Somewhere  about  the  middle  of  the  century,  as 
newspapers  began  to  multiply,  several  far-sighted 
men  began  to  appreciate  the  immense  selling  power 
that  lay  in  printed  advertising  in  the  newspapers. 
These  men  were  in  most  cases  makers  of  patent  med- 
icines. The  beginning  of  modern  advertising  is  in 
fact  synonymous  with  the  beginning  of  patent-medi- 
cine advertising.  The  reason  for  this  was  that  pro- 
prietary remedies  and  articles  of  that  kind  required 
advertising,  or  were  supposed  to  require  it,  more  fully 
than  other  articles  of  trade.  With  a  proprietary 
remedy  advertising  was  everything,  while  other 
goods,  such  as  foods  and  clothing,  could  be  sold  with- 
out it. 

Great  success  in  advertising  was  achieved  by  the 
manufacturers  of  these  proprietary  remedies.  After 


14  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

the  close  of  the  civil  war,  when  such  articles  began  to 
be  pushed,  a  number  of  them  became  household 
words.  Every  one  will  recall  Hostetter's  Bitters, 
Jayne's  Expectorant,  Mrs.  Winslow's  Soothing  Syrup 
and  St.  Jacob's  Oil.  Some  of  these  articles  are  still 
sold,  but  they  are  not  to-day  prominent  in  adver- 
tising. 

The  advertising  was  not  done  as  intelligentLyjthen 
as  it  is  now.  It  was  easier  to  make  a  success  by  means 
of  ordinarily  good  advertising.  Many  of  these  early 
advertisers  were,  however,  thorough,  brave  and  pa- 
tient, and  got  results  which  are  envied  to-day.  It  is 
-said  Jhatjup  to  the  time  of  the  civil  war  the  largest 
single  advertisement  ever  given  to  a  newspaper  by 
any  one  house  came  Irom  E.  &  T.  Fairbank  Com- 
pany, and  advertised  platform  scales.  It  appeared  in 
the  [Now  York  Tribune  and  cost  $8,000.  That  was 
a  tremendous  amount  of  money  for  advertising  in 
those_days.  Eastman's  Business  College  was  another 
early  advertiser.  It  was  the  first  business  college  to 
use  the  newspapers.  It  is  said  of  a  then  famous  tea 
and  coffee  importer  that  he  built  up  in  1870  by  ad- 
vertising a  coffee  business  which  amounted  to  200,- 
000  pounds  a  day. 

The  pioneer  advertiser  had  to  do  his  work  largely 
without  the  help  that  is  furnished  to-day.  There 
were  a  few  agencies,  of  which  the  oldest  and  best 
known  was  that  of  George  P.  Rowell  &  Co.  It 
was  the  first  to  secure  rate  cards  from  newspapers, 
and  complete  lists  of  papers  for  covering  a  given  terri- 
tory, the  first  to  estimate  the  cost  of  space,  and  to 
render  the  service  which  is  given  to-day  by  the  most 
ordinary  agencies.  All  the  modern  equipment,  for 


A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  ADVERTISING  15 

conducting  a  large  advertising  campaign  was  then 
wanting.  Advertising  was  much  of  a  mystery.  The 
commissions  of  the  agent  were  large,  perhaps  as  much 
as  50  per  cent,  of  the  cost  of  space. 

Many  interesting  stories  are  told  of  those  early 
days.  One  of  the  best  known  relates  to  Robert  Bon- 
ner, publisher  of  the  New  York  Ledger,  which,  after 
many  vicissitudes,  has  now  passed  out  of  the  control 
of  the  Bonner  family.  When  James  Gordon  Ben- 
nett, the  elder,  was  editor  of  the  Herald,  Mr.  Bonner 
was  struggling  to  build  up  his  Ledger,  and  decided  to 
try  a  little  advertising.  He  wrote  an  announcement 
consisting  of  eight  words,  "  Read  Mrs.  Southworth's 
New  Story  in  the  Ledger,"  and  sent  it  to  the  Herald 
marked  for  "  one  line."  Mr.  Bonner's  handwriting 
was  so  bad  that  the  words  were  read  in  the  Herald 
office  as  "  one  page."  Accordingly  the  line  was  set 
up  and  repeated  so  as  to  occupy  an  entire  page.  Mr. 
Bonner  was  thunderstruck  the  next  morning.  He 
had  not  to  his  name  money  enough  in  the  bank  to  pay 
the  bill.  He  rushed  excitedly  over  to  the  Herald 
office,  but  was  too  late  to.  do  any  good. 

In  a  short  time  the  results  of  the  page  announce- 
ment began  to  be  felt.  Orders  for  the  Ledger  poured 
in  until  the  entire  edition  was  exhausted  and  another 
one  was  printed.  The  success  of  the  Ledger  was  then 
established.  Ever  after  that  time  Mr.  Bonner  was  an 
ardent  believer  in  advertising  and  a  liberal  purchaser 
of  space. 

There  was  published  within  a  few  years,  in  Fame, 

a  small  advertising  paper  edited  by  Artemas  Ward, 

advertising  manager  of  Sapolio,  a  contribution  by 

John  Manning,  giving  his  reminiscences  of  the  ad- 

3 


16  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

vertising  world  of  his  day,  beginning  a  little  before 
the  war.  Here  are  some  passages  from  it: 

"  I  remember  Mr.  Y.  B.  Palmer  only  as  calling 
at  the  Tribune  office  and  getting  the  Tribune.  In 
Mr.  Palmer's  time  the  business  was,  of  course,  very 
simple.  In  the  New  York  Business  Directory  of 
1850  I  find  a  card  from  Mr.  Y.  B.  Palmer,  '  author- 
ized agent  for  receiving  advertisements  for  all  the 
leading  newspapers  of  the  country.'  I  find  another 
card  of  George  W.  Pratt,  advertising  agent,  who  also 
solicits  business,  promising  a  faithful  performance  of 
all  contracts  made  by  him.  In  looking  up  the  facts 
of  Mr.  Palmer's  agency,  I  note  that  he  seemed  con- 
scious of  the  logical  weakness  of  the  agency  element 
in  the  business,  and  aimed  at  the  very  first  to  secure 
and  perfect  a  system  that  would  monopolize  the  en- 
tire trade,  if  he  could  get  the  cooperation  of  pub- 
lishers. He  opened  offices  in  Boston,  Philadelphia 
and  Baltimore.  He  saw  that  a  multiplicity  of  agents 
in  the  same  trade,  and,  moreover,  in  a  calling  which 
required  but  little  capital  with  which  to  start,  would 
soon  involve  very  great  competition,  with  the  natural 
result  of  very  small  profits.  This  is  all  the  legacy 
Mr.  Palmer  left  of  the  business.  Mr.  Pettingill,  who 
was  a  clerk  and  solicitor  for  Mr.  Palmer,  describes 
him  as  follows: 

"  '  He  was  a  short,  thick-set  gentleman  of  good 
address,  genial  and  pleasant  in  manner,  and  had  a 
great  command  of  language,  full  of  wise  saws  and 
modern  instances.  He  was  a  capital  story-teller,  wore 
gold  spectacles  and  carried  a  gold-headed  cane,  and 
was  a  first-class  canvasser.  He  had  more  self-posses- 
sion and  assurance  than  any  man  I  ever  knew.  He 


A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  ADVERTISING  17 

would  come  to  the  office  at  9  o'clock  A.  M.,  look 
over  the  daily  papers  for  new  advertisements,  which 
I  would  cut  out  and  make  a  list  of  for  calling  on.  At 
10  o'clock  he  would  sally  out,  calling  on  the  most 
important  advertisers  first.  He  would  walk  into  the 
counting-room  of  merchants,  calling  for  the  principal 
and  announce  himself  and  hand  his  card  with  a  pleas- 
ing address,  and  with  as  much  assurance  as  if  he  were 
a  customer  who  was  about  to  purchase  a  large  bill  of 
goods.  If  he  found  the  merchant  busy,  he  would 
politely  excuse  himself  and  inquire  when  he  could 
have  the  pleasure  of  seeing  him  again,  and,  if  possible, 
would  make  an  appointment  for  that  or  the  succeed- 
ing day.  Shaking  hands  and  tipping  his  hat  grace- 
fully, he  would  leave,  but  he  was  always  sure  of  meet- 
ing his  appointments. 

"  '  If  he  found  the  party  he  was  calling  on  willing 
to  listen,  he  would  introduce  me,  and  make  a  well- 
considered  statement  of  the  benefits  of  advertising  in 
general,  and  to  the  party  he  was  addressing  in  par- 
ticular. He  would  mention  parties  who  had  made 
fortunes  by  the  use  of  judicious  advertising.  He 
would  show  how  he  (the  merchant)  could  easily 
double  his  business  and  profits  by  a  like  course.  He 
would  point  out  the  places  where  he  should  advertise, 
and  how  he  should  do  it;  he  would  generally  enforce 
his  words  by  some  well-told  stories,  and  get  all  parties 
into  good  humor  and  laughing  heartily.  He  would 
end  up  by  asking  if  he  might  be  permitted  to  make 
out  an  estimate  for  the  merchant's  advertisement. 
He  would  say  he  would  charge  nothing  for  his  esti- 
mate or  setting  up  of  his  advertisement.  The  adver- 
tiser would  be  under  no  obligation  to  give  him  an 


18  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

order  if  he  did  not  like  it,  etc.  I  carried  a  list  of  the 
towns  where  newspapers  were  printed,  and  I  checked 
off  such  towns  as  he  wanted,  and  we  recommended, 
and  I  would  then  go  to  the  office  and  prepare  the 
estimate.  The  next  day,  at  the  furthest,  I  would 
bring  it  to  the  advertiser,  and  we  generally  concluded 
a  contract  when  we  made  out  an  estimate.  This  is 
a  specimen  of  our  daily  efforts  while  Mr.  Palmer  re- 
mained in  Boston. 

"  '  Mr.  Palmer  claimed  to  be  the  sole  and  exclu- 
sive agent  of  the  papers  he  acted  for,  and  he  insisted 
that  they  should  so  state  at  the  head  of  their  editorial 
columns,  which  many  of  them  did.  As  their  agent  he 
charged  them  for  the  postage-stamps  used  and  the 
losses  made  by  advertisers'  failures  and  the  non-col- 
lection of  bills.  This  was  deducted  from  the  bills 
rendered  by  the  papers.  It  sometimes  caused  hard 
feeling  among  the  publishers,  but  he  usually  had  his 
way.  He  would  rarely  pay  any  bill  until  he  had  col- 
lected from  the  advertiser/ 

"  I  have  given  this  sketch  because  it  describes  at 
length  the  desired  attainments  of  the  successful  ad- 
vertising agent;  and,  as  we  are  told  that  old  wolves 
train  their  young  to  accompany  them  in  searching  for 
prey,  so  we  see  at  once  under  what  an  admirable  tutor 
Mr.  Pettingill  received  his  first  lessons.  The  date  of 
Mr.  Palmer's  death  I  don't  find,  but  he  became  vio- 
lently insane,  and  Mr.  Greeley  hired  a  man  to  take 
care  of  him.  Mr.  W.  W.  Sharpe,  whom  I  remember 
as  an  errand-boy  for  Mr.  Palmer,  and  who  afterward 
acquired  a  small  interest  in  the  business,  can  not  re- 
call the  date  of  Mr.  Palmer's  death  or  the  last  events 
in  his  life;  but  Mr.  PettingilPs  statement  leaves  no 


A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  ADVERTISING  19 

doubt  but  he  was  one  of  the  ablest  men  that  ever  em- 
barked in  the  business. 

"  Without  question  the  name  of  Mr.  S.  M.  Pet- 
tingill  is  the  most  conspicuous,  and  by  far  the  best 
and  most  favorably  known,  name  that  has  been  con- 
nected with  the  advertising  agency  business  in  the 
United  States.  Mr.  Pettingill  cultivated  the  virtues 
that  lead  to  success.  He  neither  drank  alcoholic 
stimulants  nor  smoked  cigars.  In  Reminiscences  of 
the  Advertising  Business,  he  writes:  '  Seeing  Mr. 
(V.  B.)  Palmer's  advertisement  in  the  Boston  Atlas 
for  a  clerk  and  general  canvasser,  I  applied  and  se- 
cured the  situation.7  The  duties  are  described  in  de- 
tail and  are  printed  in  the  preceding  notice  of  Mr. 
Palmer.  '  I  worked  for  Mr.  Palmer  from  January, 
1848,  to  January,  1849.  Near  the  end  of  the  year  I 
wrote  him  (Mr.  Palmer)  that  I  had  received  an  offer 
of  partnership  from  my  brother  in  the  Bridgeport 
(Conn.)  Standard  and  job  office,  and  that  I  believed  it 
to  be  my  interest  to  accept  it.  He  (Mr.  Palmer) 
wrote  me  two  letters  in  reply,  urging  me  to  remain 
with  him  and  agreeing  to  increase  my  salary  from 
year  to  year,  as  I  should  make  myself  useful  and 
valuable  to  him.  After  considering  carefully  the 
whole  situation,  I  decided  to  leave,  and  did  so  at  the 
end  of  my  engagement.7  Instead  of  going  into  part- 
nership at  Bridgeport  with  his  brother,  we  find  him 
renting  an  office  in  Boston  on  the  8th  day  of  Febru- 
ary, 1849.  He  seems  to  have  liberally  followed  Mr. 
Palmer's  methods  and  adopted  even  his  forms  and 
style  in  every  instance. 

"After  starting  in  business,  he  says:  'I  sent  a 
circular  to  the  publishers  of  newspapers  throughout 


20  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

the  country,  stating  what  I  proposed  to  do,  asking  for 
the  agency  of  their  papers  in  Boston  and  their  rates 
for  advertising,  telling  them  that  I  should  hold  my- 
self responsible  for  all  the  orders  I  should  send  them, 
and  that  their  bills  would  be  paid  promptly,  whether 
I  collected  or  not.  I  gave  several  good  recommenda- 
tions and  references.  I  received  a  large  number  of 
letters  from  publishers  appointing  me  as  their  Boston 
agent,  and  in  many  instances  printing  a  notice  of  my 
agency  at  the  top  of  their  editorial  columns  and  send- 
ing their  newspapers  regularly  to  me.  I  then  adver- 
tised in  the  principal  newspapers  that  I  had  been  ap- 
pointed the  agent  of  the  principal  newspapers 
throughout  the  country,  and  was  prepared  to  attend 
to  those  advertising  in  the  best  manner  at  the  lowest 
~ates,  and  solicited  their  business.  When  Mr.  Palm- 
er found  I  had  started  a  rival  agency  in  Boston,  he 
was  very  wroth  and  charged  me  with  deceiving  him 
about  going  into  partnership  with  my  brother,  of 
availing  myself  of  his  forms  and  manner  of  doing 
business  and  using  his  list  of  newspapers.' 

"  Mr.  Palmer,  it  seems,  sent  out  a  circular  to  the 
newspapers  reminding  them  of  his  exclusive  author- 
ity as  their  authorized  agent,  that  Mr.  Pettingill  was 
trespassing  on  his  rights.  For  such  in  truth  and  law 
he  was,  certainly  to  all  who  formerly  recognized  Mr. 
Palmer  as  their  authorized  agent.  Mr.  Pettingill 
writes  of  Mr.  Palmer's  circular:  e  This  circular  letter 
proved  to  be  a  good  advertisement  for  me.  The  pub- 
lishers wrote  me  by  the  hundreds,  giving  me  encour- 
agement, and  appointing  me  their  agent  in  Boston, 
and  gave  me  many  good  notices  in  their  editorial  col- 
umns. Several  published  Mr.  Palmer's  circular  and 


A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  ADVERTISING  21 

commented  on  it  unfavorably,  as  an  unwarranted  at- 
tempt to  prevent  legitimate  competition.' 

"^At  the  time  here  referred  to,  publishers  had 
very  crude  notions  of  an  advertising  agency,  and  the 
publishers  were  then  and  are  now  very  varying  in  their 
advertising  rates.  Extensive  advertisers  are  favored 
and  are  frequently  furnished  with  lower  prices  than 
the  most  favored  advertising  agency.  *  Soon  after  I 
began/  writes  Mr.  Pettingill,  '  Mr.  George  "W.  Sim- 
mons, the  celebrated  clothing  dealer  of  Oak  Hall, 
Boston,  put  his  advertising  into  my  hands.  I  agreed 
to  prepare  and  insert  daily  a  reading  notice  in  each 
of  the  ten  or  twelve  daily  papers  in  Boston,  and  no 
two  should  be  alike.  This  was  an  easy  task  at  first, 
but  after  several  months  it  became  a  grind;  for  va- 
riety I  fell  into  rhyme,  and  in  some  instances  where 
the  verses  were  more  pretentious  they  were  signed 
as  coming  from  "  Prof.  Littlefellow,"  or  "  Prof. 
Shortfellow."  The  Boston  Post  published  one  of 
these  screeds  by  mistake,  or  otherwise,  as  by  Prof. 
Longfellow.  This  excited  the  ire  of  the  famous  poet 
of  that  name,  and  he  had  his  attorney  send  Mr.  Sim- 
mons a  letter  complaining  of  the  use  of  his  name,  and 
he  requested  that  Mr.  Simmons  should  discontinue 
even  the  use  of  the  name  of  Littlefellow  or  Short- 
fellow,  it  being  distasteful  to  him,  which  Mr.  Sim- 
mons agreed  to  do.' 

"In  1852  Mr.  Pettingill  came  to  New  York  and 
founded  the  honored  firm  of  S.  M.  Pettingill  &  Co. 
He  says,  '  I  was  exceedingly  pleased  and  gratified  on 
receiving,  soon  after  I  began  in  New  York,  a  written 
testimonial  and  indorsement,  handsomely  engrossed, 
signed  by  about  thirty  of  the  most  prominent  business 


22  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

firms  in  Boston,  for  whom  I  had  done  advertising,  ex- 
pressing their  confidence  in  me  as  a  man  and  their 
satisfaction  as  to  the  manner  and  results  of  the  adver- 
tising that  they  had  done  through  my  agency,  and 
recommending  me  and  my  agency  to  the  confidence 
and  support  of  the  merchants  of  New  York.' 

"The  New  York  Business  Directory  of  1850 
prints  the  name  of  a  Mr.  Pratt  as  an  advertising 
agent.  I  find  no  trace  of  him  as  an  advertising  agent, 
but  I  find  the  name  of  a  Mr.  Pratt  referred  to  as  the 
publisher  of  the  Merchant's  Ledger,  an  advertising 
enterprise,  which  was  spoken  of  as  started  by  an  ex- 
merchant,  who  conceived  the  idea  of  making  a  paper 
that  would  interest  country  merchants,  and  derives 
all  its  interest  from  the  fact  that  it  was  bought  by  Mr. 
Robert  Bonner  in  1851.  Mr.  Bonner  owned  a  small 
printing-office,  in  which  he  set  up  the  type  of  the 
Ledger  and  of  one  or  two  other  small  papers.  Mr. 
Pettingill  states  that  he  started  a  monthly  publication 
in  1851,  called  Pettingill's  Reporter,  containing  a 
list  of  the  newspapers  published  in  the  United  States 
and  Canada,  and  that  one  number  of  it  was  published 
in  Mr.  Bonner's  office.  Mr.  Pettingill  states  that  Mr. 
Bonner  was  a  printer  on  the  New  York  Herald  orig- 
inally, while  a  better  authority  states  that  he  worked 
on  the  Hartford  Courant,  and  as  proof-reader  on  the 
Evening  Mirror.  It  appears,  too,  that  Mr.  Bonner 
was  ambitious  as  an  inventor,  and  invented  a  printing- 
press  which  he  thought  would  supersede  Hoe's. 

"'In  the  fall  of  1854,'  writes  Mr.  Pettingill, 
'  Mr.  Bonner  came  into  the  office  with  advertisements 
in  type.  It  was  an  announcement  that  the  Merchant's 
Ledger  would  hereafter  be  changed  to  the  New  York 


A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  ADVERTISING  23 

Ledger,  and  be  hereafter  a  literary  family  journal  of 
high  character,  that  Fanny  Fern's  new  story  would  be 
contributed  to  the  first  number.7  A  good  deal  better 
informed  writer  states  the  facts  as  follows:  '  Mr.  Bon- 
ner, after  an  effort  at  inventing,  did  not  like  to  lose 
the  weekly  job  of  setting  the  type  of  the  Ledger,  and 
bought  it.  Haying  secured  the  paper  he  scarcely 
knew  what  to  do  with  it.  He  gradually  dropped  the 
mercantile  features  and  substituted  family  reading. 
In  1853  he  engaged  Mrs.  Sigourney  to  write  for  his 
paper,  and  she  continued  to  be  a  contributor  till  the 
day  of  her  death.  Two  years  later,  in  1855,  he  made 
arrangements  with  Fanny  Fern  to  write  for  it,  and 
advertised  it  at  $100  a  column.'  Mr.  Pettingill  may 
be  correct  as  to  the  amount  paid,  but  as  to  dates  and 
style  of  advertising  he  is  in  error,  and  it  may  be  here 
well  to  state  that  Mr.  Bonner  did  a  good  deal  of  his 
advertising  direct,  and  in  no  instance  has  he  ever 
been  known  to  consult  any  advertising  agency  as  to 
copy  or  style  of  display.  Mr.  Bonner  was  the  founder 
of  the  sensational  style  of  advertising  in  New  York, 
although  it  was  very  old  in  England,  and  is  ridiculed 
by  Sheridan  in  The  Critic.  Mr.  Bonner  spent  as  high 
as  $27,000  in  one  week  advertising,  I  think,  Edward 
Everett  writing  for  the  Ledger.  Mr.  Pettingill  says: 
'  I  declined  to  attend  to  the  advertising  of  any  other 
party  who  imitated  his  style.'  Throughout  this  crit- 
icism it  is  plain  that  Mr.  Pettingill  had  some  kind  of  a 
philosophy  of  life,  for  he  concludes  his  reference  to 
Mr.  Bonner  by  saying  that  he  is  a  remarkable  in- 
stance of  what  a  poor  boy,  in  this  country,  by  unaided 
efforts  and  with  indomitable  will,  can  accomplish,  if 
he  is  guided  by  strict  moral  principles. 


24  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

"  The  next  new  venture  we  find  Mr.  Pettingill 
engaged  in  was  in  imitating  another  scheme  of  Mr. 
Palmer's  in  the  form  of  a  New  York  City  Business 
Directory  of  small  cards  with  name  and  address. 
'  After  opening  my  advertising  agency/  he  says,  i  I 
roomed  for  a  time  at  the  Collamore  House,  Tammany 
Hotel,  the  present  Sun  Building,  and  Clinton  Hotel, 
and  spent  my  evenings  writing  at  my  office.  Soon  I 
became  weary  of  having  no  home  and  became  at- 
tracted by  the  preaching  of  Rev.  Henry  Ward 
Beecher,  in  Brooklyn.  I  often  went  to  hear  him,  and 
at  the  renting  of  pews  in  January,  1853,  I  introduced 
myself  to  him  as  the  son  of  Rev.  Amos  Pettingill, 
who  was  settled  in  the  ministry  at  Litchfield,  Conn., 
at  the  time  his  father  was  in  another  part  of  the  same 
town.  He  received  me  very  cordially,  making  many 
inquiries  about  my  brother  and  sisters,  saying  he  re- 
membered Parson  Pettingill  very  well,  that  his 
father  had  often  exchanged  pulpits,  that  they  were 
old  friends  and  loved  each  other  as  David  and  Jona- 
than did  of  old.  He  inquired  what  I  was  doing  here 
and  I  told  him,  and  said  I  would  like  to  find  a  good 
boarding-place  near  his  church/  Mr.  Pettingill  found 
what  he  wanted,  and  his  next  plan  was  for  establish- 
ing an  American  agency  in  London  which  should  rep- 
resent the  American  press,  file  newspapers  from 
every  State  in  the  Union  and  Canada,  furnish  adver- 
tising and  correspondence,  attend  to  the  wants  and 
promote  the  interests  of  publishers,  and  make  it  the 
home  of  all  Americans  visiting  abroad.  '  I  corre- 
sponded in  regard  to  establishing  such  an  institu- 
tion with,  among  others,  Mr.  P.  T.  Barnum,  who  was 
then  in  London,  who  approved  of  the  plan  and  agreed 


A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  ADVERTISING  25 

to  take  the  management  of  it  if  I  would  guarantee 
him  a  salary  of  $1,000  a  year.  I  reluctantly  aban- 
doned the  enterprise.'  We  come  again  to  a  few  of 
his  observations — these  happenings  date  to  1856. 

"  '  Mr.  P.  T.  Barnum  understands  the  true  philos- 
ophy and  art  of  advertising  as  well  as  any  living  man. 
His  arrangements  for  the  Jenny  Lind  concerts  in 
this  country  were  masterpieces  of  good  management, 
tact  and  good  sense,  and  showed  his  thorough  knowl- 
edge of  human  nature.  He  is  a  very  magnetic  man, 
and  you  feel  that  you  must  grant  everything  he  asks 
because  of  his  fair  and  liberal  dealing.' 

"  Previous  to  the  war  I  find  Mr.  Pettingill  writ- 
ing as  though  he  alone  conducted  the  business  and 
constituted  the  firm.  '  During  the  war/  he  says, 
'  our  agency  had  contracts  for  advertising  from  the 
Central  Pacific  Railroad  Company.7  In  1866,  he 
writes  again,  '  I  contracted  for  advertising  in  the  lead- 
ing newspapers,  etc.'  When  he  made  a  partnership 
with  Mr.  James  H.  Bates  does  not  appear  from  his 
Reminiscences.  In  1870  I  find  the  firm  name,  in 
connection  with  Messrs.  George  P.  Rowell  &  Co., 
endeavoring  to  secure  the  consent  of  publishers  to 
recognize  these  two  firms  as  their  exclusive  and  sole 
agents  in  New  York,  and  also  asking  that  such  evi- 
dence of  authority  be  published  at  the  head  of  edito- 
rial columns  or  other  equally  prominent  space,  as  fol- 
lows: «  George  P.  Rowell  &  Co.,  40  Park  Row,  N.  Y., 
S.  M.  Pettingill  &  Co.,  37  Park  Row.  K  Y.,  are  the 
sole  agents  for  (mention  name  of  paper)  in  that  city, 
and  are  authorized  to  contract  for  inserting  advertise- 
ments for  us  at  our  lowest  cash  rates.  Advertisers  in 
that  city  are  requested  to  leave  their  favors  with 


26  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

either  of  the  above  houses.'  Any  one  who  reads  this 
request  will  notice  its  resemblance  to  Mr.  Palmer's 
original  idea.  In  adopting  Mr.  Palmer's  printed 
forms  without  consent,  and  in  the  controversy  grow- 
ing out  of  it,  Mr.  Pettingill's  plea  was  that  Mr.  Palm- 
er's act  was  an  '  unwarranted  attempt  to  prevent 
legitimate  competition.  They  (the  publishers)  as- 
serted that  I  had  as  good  a  right  to  conduct  an  adver- 
tising agency  as  he  had.'  Mr.  Pettingill  must  have 
been  twenty-five  years  old  when  he  left  the  employ- 
ment of  Mr.  Palmer. 

"  All  the  latter  events  of  Mr.  Pettingill's  business 
life  are  familiar  to  the  advertising  public.  Some  of 
the  large  enterprises  undertaken  by  the  firm  were 
well  done,  Mr.  Bates  being  a  gentleman  of  education, 
of  wide  reading,  and  a  man  fully  capable  of  taking 
a  large  view  of  matters  and  methodizing  and  perfect- 
ing a  business  system  for  any  line  of  commercial 
work.  In  criticizing  Mr.  Pettingill  all  of  my  facts  and 
dates  are  from  first  sources,  and  I,  moreover,  feel  sat- 
isfied that  the  Reminiscences  were  written  when  Mr. 
Pettingill  wore  rose-colored  spectacles.  Mr.  Pettin- 
gill was  as  vain  as  a  peacock,  and  easily  flattered,  en- 
tirely destitute  of  imagination,  and  had  no  real  per- 
ception of  the  meaning  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount, 
and  the  writings  and  teachings  of  St.  Paul  were  as 
much  out  of  his  reach  as  if  they  had  never  been  trans- 
lated." 

From  these  reminiscences  it  will  be  seen  that  in_ 
the  early  days  of  advertising  agencies  the  magazine 
wns  of  little  consequence.     To-day  the  magazine  if 
the  strongest  medium  we  have,  or  at  least  is  as  strong 
and  important  as  the  newspapers.     We  read  in  the 


A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  ADVERTISING  27 

early  days  about  advertising  done  in  behalf  of  the 
Ledger,  but  nothing  at  all  about  the  advertising  done 
in  it.  Some  of  the  magazines  that  were  important  in 
1850  are  still  alive  and  important  to-day  and  are  now 
valuable  advertising  mediums.  Again,  there  is  the 
Saturday  Evening  Post,  which  has  been  published 
continuously  for  one  hundred  and  seventy-six  years, 
but  in  all  its  history  it  never  became  a  serious  adver- 
tising medium  until  bought  by  Mr.  Curtis.  The 
growth  and  development  of  the  magazine  are  coinci- 
dent with  a  large  part  of  the  history  of  advertising 
during  the  last  ten  years. 

Some  of  the  early  successes  made  by  advertisers 
are  interesting  as  the  foundations  of  businesses  that 
are  to-day  flourishing.  Before  the  days  of  the  tobacco 
and  cigar  trusts,  the  name  of  Pierre  Lorillard  was  one 
of  the  best  known  in  the  tobacco  field.  The  elder 
Lorillard  was  a  snuff  manufacturer,  and  his  old  mill 
is  still  an  object  of  interest  on  the  banks  of  the  Bronx, 
in  Bronx  Park.  He  was  a  warm  believer  in  advertis- 
ing, and  advertising  was  kept  up  by  his  house  until 
the  various  companies  were  absorbed  by  combina- 
tions. It  is  said  that  he  built  up  a  fortune  of  $20,- 
000,000,  a  great  estate  for  those  days,  by  making  and 
advertising  tobacco  and  snuff.  In  1868  this  house 
had  gross  yearly  sales  of  from  four  to  five  million 
dollars. 

Some  of  the  older  commercial  houses  have  been 
constant  advertisers  from  the  earliest  day.  Among 
these  is  Enoch  Morgan's  Sons,  who  manufacture 
Sapolio.  This  business  was  started  thirty  years  ago, 
and  for  thirty  years  has  been  advertising  continuously. 
At  the  start  an  appropriation  of  $30,000  per  year 


28  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

seemed  large.  To-day  the  same  firm  is  spending 
$1,000  a  day.  It  is  interesting  that  the  same  adver- 
tising manager  has  been  employed  by  this  house  con- 
tinuously throughout  the  entire  thirty  years,  and  that 
he  is  to-day  one  of  the  well-known  advertising  men. 
He  is  a  director  in  the  firm  of  Enoch  Morgan's  Sons, 
is  the  owner  of  Fame,  an  advertising  newspaper,  and 
is  quite  deeply  interested  in  a  number  of  other  proj- 
ects, all  of  which  are  liberally  advertised. 

The  Sapolio  advertising  has  been  responsible  for  a 
large  number  of  innovations.  The  proverbs  .about  it 
which  used  to  appear  in  country  newspapers  and 
street-car  cards  were  interesting  novelties.  This  was 
probably  the  beginning  of  the  introduction  into  ad- 
vertising matter  of  something  more  than  a  bare  state- 
ment of  facts  about  the  goods.  Later  Sapolio  was  re- 
sponsible for  the  now  famous  Spotless  Town  series  of 
verses  which  were  probably  the  first  successful  ad- 
vertising jingles.  These  jingles  had  great  popularity, 
which  was  partly  because  they  had  great  publicity. 
They  were  quoted  everywhere.  They  have  been  used 
as  the  basis  for  political  cartoons  in  newspapers. 
They  were  kept  running  persistently  in  street-car 
cards  for  years  until  all  people  able  to  read  were 
familiar  with  them. 

The  success  of  the  Spotless  Town  verses  led  to 
the  inauguration  of  ideas  of  this  kind  which  would 
take  advantage  of  a  national  trait  and  peculiarity — 
the  taking  up  of  an  idea  and  passing  it  on.  Such  col- 
lateral advertising  is  what  most  large  advertisers  now 
aim  to  secure.  It  is  very  valuable,  but  hard  to  ob- 
tain. It  has  been  secured  in  many  ways,  and  has 
resulted  not  only  in  jingles,  but  in  catch  phrases  which 


A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  ADVERTISING  29 

have  almost  become  parts  of  the  language.  For  in- 
stance, a  certain  hook  and  eye  was  advertised  by 
means  of  clever  jingles  and  the  phrase,  "  See  that 
Hump  \  "  until  "  See  that  Hump  \  "  came  to  have  al- 
most the  significance  of  some  colloquial  or  slang 
phrase.  A  large  manufacturer  of  amateur  cameras 
used  in  all  his  advertising  the  catch  phrase,  "  You 
press  the  button,  and  we  do  the  rest,"  which  became 
famous  everywhere.  Improvements  in  camera  con- 
struction since  then  have  limited  the  descriptive  pow- 
ers of  this  phrase  and  curtailed  its  circulation. 

Following  these  and  other  successes,  for  such  they 
were,  came  the  introduction  of  a  single  character 
figure  or  character  figures  in  advertising,  who  ap- 
peared regularly  and  spoke  about  the  advertised 
article.  For  instance,  the  manufacturers  of  a  ginger- 
snap  made  it  known  by  means  of  onejor_two_  clowns, 
figures  of  whom  appeared  in  all  the  advertising.  The 
same  idea  better  carried  out  appeared  in  Sunny  Jim. 
The  manufacturer  of  a  breakfast  food  purchased 
some  doggerel  from  a  young  girl  which  described 
the  transformation  of  a  certain  mythical  Jim  Dumps 
into  Sunny  Jim  by  eating  the  food  in  question.  A 
girl  chum  of  the  writer  drew  a  very  grotesque  cartoon 
showing  Jim  Dumps  before  and  after  taking  the  food. 
The  advertising  manager  of  the  food  company  per- 
ceived in  this  the  possibility  of  a  series  of  such  jingles, 
had  the  series  written  and  widely  circulated.  The 
original  set  comprised  thirteen  jingles  which  ap- 
peared in  45,000  street-cars  in  America.  The  same 
illustrated  jingles  were  used  in  newspapers  until  they 
had  attained  publicity  in  12,500  papers.  Posters  and 
painted  signs  based  upon  the  same  idea  were  used 


30  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

freely.  The  advertising  was  then  carried  into  Eng- 
land and  other  countries.  Undoubtedly  no  char- 
acter created  by  advertising  is  so  widely  known  as 
Sunny  Jim.  He  has  become  a  large  part  of  the  lan- 
guage reminding  us. of  noted  characters  in  fiction  and 
history.  He  is  perhaps  better  known  in  many  homes 
than  Wilkins  Micawber,  Sancho  Panza  or  Henry 
VIII. 

The  tremendous  power  of  persistent  advertising 
to  carry  an  idea  of  any  kind  into  the  minds  of  the 
people  and  stamp  it  there  is  amazing.  Sunny  Jim  in 
many  homes  is  the  pet  name  for  one  of  the  children. 
It  has  been  used  as  the  basis  of  thousands  of  news- 
paper cartoons;  very  many  plays  have  allusions  to 
him  and  his  transformation;  a  noted  chief  justice  of 
England  pointed  his  charge  from  the  bench  by  allu- 
sion to  this  same  character,  and  a  certain  noted  Lon- 
don divine  preached  a  sermon  from  this  text.  To  ac- 
complish this  required  in  the  space  of  about  two 
years  nearly  a  million  dollars.  These  facts  would  not 
mean  success,  except  that  the  food  in  question  has 
outsold  all  its  competitors. 

The  real  history  of  modern  advertising  began 
with  an  appreciation  on  the  part  of  great  manufac- 
turers of  advertising  as  the  most  important  selling 
force  they  could  employ.  This  has  been  shown  no- 
tably by  the  fact  that  the  manufacturers  of  staples 
are  rapidly  taking  to  it. 

Most  of  the  goods  bought  in  this  country  are  sold 
through  retail  stores.  The  theory  of  the  manu- 
facturer is  to  make  his  goods  known  to  the  public 
who  purchase  at  these  stores  by  means  of  a  trade-mark 
or  name,  or  both.  The  particular  merits  of  his  goods 


A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  ADVERTISING  3J 

are  fully  described  in  the  advertisements  in  maga- 
zines, newspapers  and  elsewhere,  and  in  this  way  his 
goods  will  be  selected  as  against  others  unidentified 
on  the  shelves  of  the  dealer.  Here  lies  the  greatest 
field  for  advertising.  It  is  so  great  that  its  possibili- 
ties have  hardly  yet  been  touched.  It  has  been  sug- 
gested that  great  combinations  of  capital  should  do 
away  with  advertising  as  they  are  doing  away  with 
competition.  Some  of  the  largest  users  of  advertis- 
ing space,  however,  are  the  combinations  known  as 
trusts. 

Advertising  has  developed  three  distinct  profes- 
sions^ They  are  the  advertising  expert,  the  adver- 
tising manager  and  the  advertising  solicitor. 

The  expert  is  the  pfotessional  man  in  his  own 
office,  who  acts  as  adviser  and  generally  as  agent  for 
clients.  His  relations  to  the  man  who  lias  a  product 
to  sell  by  advertising  are  similar  to  those  of  a  lawyer, 
doctor  or  architect  to  clients.  He  is  an  adviser  and 
his  experience  in  managing  advertising  campaigns  is 
purchased  by  the  would-be  advertiser. 

The  advertising  manager  is  an  advertising  expert 
employed  exclusively  by  one  house.  Nearly  all  con- 
cerns whose  annual  expenditure  amounts  to  $50,000 
or  over,  are  inclined  to  employ  men  to  manage  the 
advertising.  In  this  case  the  advertising  man  acts  in 
the  "capacity  of  advertising  adviser.  The  only  sense 
in  which  he  can  not  act  as  the  outside  advertising  man 
is  in  placing  advertising,  although  in  placing  news- 
paper advertising,  making  contracts  for  billboards  and 
street-car  cards,  he  is  able  to  act  as  well,  or  nearly  as 
well,  as  the  outside  man. 

Magazines  and  the  better  sort  of  newspapers  re- 

4 


32  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

quire  that  an  advertising  agent  shall  be  recognized, 
and  as  a  rule  decline  to  recognize  a  regular  employee 
of  the  house.  This  makes  it  necessary  for  the  busi- 
ness of  a  house  which  employs  an  advertising  man  to 
be  placed  through  an  agency.  Many  attempts  are 
made  by  houses  who  give  out  a  large  amount  of  adver- 
tising to  form  agencies  of  their  own  and  get  all  the 
commissions. 

The  third  profession  is-  that  of  the  solicitor.  He 
is  the  man  who  secures  advertising  for  a  publicationT 
In  a  large  sense  he  is  a  creator  of  business."  He  makes 
a  study  of  commercial  conditions.  He  discovers  new 
business  that  can  be  advertised  and  outlines  plans. 
He,  of  course,  represents  his  publication,  but  at  the 
same  time  he  creates  business  for  other  publications. 
This  work  is  also  performed  by  the  better  class  of  ad- 
vertising agents,  and  in  ideal  conditions  the  solicitors 
of  the  leading  publications  and  the  managers  of  agen- 
cies of  the  class  which  develop  advertising  work  in 
entire  harmony. 


CHAPTEE    III 

THE    CHANNELS    OF    TRADE 

GENERAL  advertising  and  the  methods  by  which 
goods  are  distributed  to  the  consumer  are  so  closely 
interwoven  that  some  description  of  the  channels  of 
trade  seems  necessary  here.  There  are  only  two  ways 
by  which  goods  can  be  sold  to  the  consumer,  one 
through  the  retail  stores,  the  other  directly  by  the 
manufacturer,  or  some  one  representing  him  through 
correspondence,  the  goods  being  delivered  by  mail, 
express  or  freight.  The  latter  method,  as  far  as  it 
relates  to  advertising,  is  known  as  mail-order  business, 
and  will  be  treated  separately. 

For  goods  whose  ultimate  destination  is  the  retail 
store  there  is,  between  the  manufacturer  and  the  re- 
tailer, a  chain  of  commission,  wholesale  and  jobbing 
houses  and  a  long  line  of  traveling  salesmen.  In 
some  lines  the  output  of  an  entire  factory  is  taken  by 
one  commission  house,  or  perhaps  by  a  group  of  them, 
these  commission  houses  in  turn  dealing  with  the 
buyers  for  the  jobbing  and  wholesale  houses.  The 
goods,  thus  assembled  in  the  jobbing  houses  by  buyers 
in  various  lines,  are  then  carried  in  sample  by  travel- 
ing salesmen  to  the  retail  stores.  There  are  about 
eleven  different  lines  of  business  of  sufficient  impor- 
tance to  be  considered  each  as  a  branch  of  trade  by 
itself.  They  are  classified  according  as  the  goods  are 


34  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

distributed  among  retail  stores  in  the  average  town 
and  are  as  follows: 

Dry-goods,  Hardware, 

Groceries,  Millinery, 

Clothing,  Men's  furnishings, 

Boots  and  shoes,  Stationery  and  books, 

Drugs,  Harness  and  carriages, 

Jewelry. 

Such  a  classification  is,  however,  purely  arbitrary, 
being  neither  scientific  nor  official.  Articles  of  trade 
are  thus  divided  as  a  matter  of  convenience.  The 
public  expects  to  buy  certain  things  at  dry-goods 
stores  and  certain  others  at  drug-stores,  although  fre- 
quently there  is  no  reason  why  they  should  be  sold 
at  the  one  store  any  more  than  at  the  other.  The 
products  of  many  widely  different  factories  and  mills 
are  assembled  in  wholesale  dry-goods  houses  because 
all  these  things  are  sold  in  a  retail  dry-goods  store. 
Often  a  manufacturer  may  make  articles  adapted 
both  to  grocery  and  drug  stores,  and  in  this  case  his 
goods  will  be  carried  by  grocery  jobbers  and  by  drug 
jobbers.  There  is  no  fixed  custom  as  to  the  way  in 
which  goods  are  distributed  among  retail  stores.  It 
is  purely  a  matter  of  custom  and  varies  in  different 
localities.  In  the  great  department  stores  these  lines 
are  being  more  and  more  broken  up,  and  the  eleven 
different  lines  may  all  be  found  assembled  there 
under  a  single  roof. 

For  several  reasons  the  dry-goods  store  may  be 
taken  as  an  example  of  modern  merchandising.  To 
begin  with,  it  is  the  largest  of  the  eleven  lines  just 
mentioned — the  line  in  and  for  which  the  best  adver- 
tising has  been  done,  both  wholesale  and  retail.  The 


THE  CHANNELS  O*    TRADE  35 

various  things  sold  in  dry-goods  stores  have  been  ad- 
vertised by  the  manufacturer  to  the  consumer,  by  the 
manufacturer  to  the  retailer,  and  by  the  retailer  to 
the  consumer.  The  retailer  buys  his  goods  of  drum- 
mers, representing  wholesale  houses.  This  wholesale 
stock  is  made  up  of  foreign  goods  bought  from  im- 
porters, and  domestic  goods  bought  either  direct  from 
the  manufacturer  or  from  commission  merchants. 
Some  wholesale  houses  buy  directly  from  the  manu- 
facturer and  take  his  entire  output.  Some  also  send 
buyers  abroad  to  buy  imported  goods  directly  of  the 
manufacturer  or  of  foreign  commission  merchants. 

The  growth  of  department  stores  has  made  them 
a  power  in  the  buying  field.  Many  now  buy  direct 
from  both  foreign  and  domestic  sources,  ignoring  the 
importer,  commission  man  and  wholesaler.  The  fa- 
cilities offered  for  buying  cheaply  on  a  large  scale  for 
cash  have  raised  up  wholesale  houses  from  many  re- 
tail stores  in  the  larger  cities. 

The  retail  dry-goods  store  buys  goods  in  two  ways 
— through  its  own  department  buyers,  who  go  to  the 
markets  in  this  country  and  abroad,  and  from  travel- 
ing salesmen  representing  importers,  manufacturers, 
wholesalers  or  jobbers.  Stores  which  are  able  regu- 
larly to  send  buyers  even  to  the  local  metropolitan 
market  are  few.  The  greater  number  are  limited  to 
one  visit  to  New  York  or  Chicago  a  season  by  the 
proprietor,  the  remainder  of  the  stock  being  bought 
from  traveling  men.  The  traveling  man  is  to  the 
dealer  almost  his  only  source  of  supply.  The  travel- 
ing man  thus  comes  to  own  and  control  the  trade  of 
many  retailers,  and  this  trade  he  can  transfer  to  an- 
gther  house  should  he  enter  into  a  new  connection, 


36  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

Modern  advertising,  however,  is  breaking  down 
this  relation.  It  is  bringing  the  manufacturer  closer 
to  the  dealer,  thus  making  each  independent  of  the 
traveling  man.  While  this  is  decreasing  the  travel- 
ing man's  ability  to  transfer  a  great  volume  of  busi- 
ness from  one  house  to  another,  it  really  adds  a  great 
deal  to  his  selling  power,  for  he  is  backed  up  by  the 
additional  selling  power  that  advertising  gives. 

Another  element  which  has  grown  up  in  the 
modern  business  world  is  the  ownership  of  local  stores 
by  large  manufacturing  houses.  A  large  manufac- 
turer, confining  his  ability  to  a  single  line  of  low- 
priced  shoes,  for  instance,  has  established  his  own 
stores  all  over  the  United  States,  in  which  he  sells 
nothing  but  his  own  men's  shoes  at  $3.50.  As  these 
stores  were  multiplied  the  manufacturer  extended  his 
advertising  to  mediums  circulating  all  over  the  coun- 
try, and  giving  not  only  the  name  of  his  shoe  but  his 
local  stores.  The  plan  was  so  successful  when  begun 
that  competitors  adopted  it  until  now  there  are  in 
every  large  city  several  shoe-stores,  each  owned  by 
the  manufacturer  of  the  shoes  sold  in  them,  and 
which  sell  only  those  shoes.  Sometimes  manufac- 
turers practically  furnish  the  capital  for  a  retailer  to 
start  or  remain  in  business.  This  secures  the  retail- 
er's trade,  and  amounts  to  ownership  by  the  manufac- 
turer. 

In  each  of  the  retail  industries  there  has  been  an 
interesting  development  in  the  past  ten  years,  point- 
ing to  the  gradual  transformation  of  that  particular 
line  of  business  under  the  influence  of  advertising. 
In  every  case  advertising  has  had  an  inspiring  and 
probably  beneficial  effect.  Better  goods  are  made 


THE  CHANNELS  OF  TRADE  37 

to-day  than  were  made  ten  years  ago,  partly  as  a  re- 
sult of  the  increasing  prosperity  of  the  country  and, 
therefore,  the  increasing  ability  of  the  public  to  pay 
for  better  goods,  but  more  especially  as  a  result  of 
advertising.  Competition  has  been  more  open.  The 
advertiser  has  realized  that  in  order  to  have  some- 
thing to  say,  he  must  make  goods  with  qualities  that 
can  be  talked  about.  Competition  shows  itself  in 
the  statement  made  in  print,  but  the  stories  are 
worthless  as  advertising  unless  backed  up  by  superior 
work  in  the  factory. 

As  an  instance  of  the  way  in  which  a  new  article 
may  become  an  important  part  of  the  stock  of  a  store, 
take  so  simple  a  thing  as  skirt  binding.  An  intelli- 
gent clerk  in  a  small  Western  store  was  impressed  by 
the  fact  that  he  had  just  sold  a  strip  of  bias  velveteen 
from  the  bolt  to  a  customer  who  wished  to  trim  the 
edge  of  her  dress.  He  recalled  that  he  had  made  a 
number  of  sales  for  this  same  purpose.  It  struck  him 
that  if  there  was  that  much  demand  for  a  skirt  bind- 
ing in  one  small  town,  there  must  be  a  considerable 
demand  for  it  all  over  the  country.  Acting  upon  this 
idea  he  started  a  business  of  manufacturing  skirt 
binding  of  bias  velveteen  and  other  materials  suitable 
for  the  purpose.  As  the  business  grew,  advertising 
became  necessary.  The  advertising  first  took  the 
form  of  direct  statements  to  the  trade  through  trade 
papers  and  of  matter  aiming  to  induce  merchants  to 
place  the  new  skirt  binding  in  stock.  Later  adverti- 
sing in  women's  publications  and  other  magazines 
called  the  attention  of  dressmakers  and  of  women  who 
did  their  own  dressmaking  to  a  ready-made  skirt  bind- 
ing. In  this  way  women  were  induced  to  ask  for  the 


38  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

skirt  binding  by  name  until  that  particular  article 
became  a  staple  in  every  dry-goods  store  in  the  Uni- 
ted States.  The  annual  expenditure  for  advertising 
purposes  has  been  considerably  over  $100,000. 

The  same  method  has  been  repeated  with  differ- 
ent braids  for  trimming,  with  corsets,  with  boning 
for  stiffening  waists,  with  different  grades  of  muslin 
and  other  fabrics,  with  goods  made  up  into  suits  and 
skirts,  until  perhaps  one-half  the  stock  of  the  average 
retail  dry-goods  store  is  known  by  name  to  the  women 
who  shop  there,  because  each  article  has  been  adver- 
tised by  the  maker.  Some  of  these  articles  have  be- 
come standard.  The  name  of  the  maker  in  connec- 
tion with  the  article  gives  it  a  value  of  its  own. 
Other  manufacturers  may  make  an  article  equally 
good,  but  the  acquaintance  of  the  purchaser  with 
its  name  and  quality  is  lacking.  The  retail  de- 
partment store  is  the  most  enterprising  of  modern  ad- 
vertisers. Hence  these  well-known  articles  may  ap- 
pear again  by  name  in  the  retail  advertising,  thus 
strengthening  the  impression  already  created  by  the 
manufacturer  through  his  general  advertising. 

Similar  changes  have  been  going  on  in  other  lines. 
Probably  the  second  most  interesting  development  is 
the  transformation  of  the  ready-made  clothing  busi- 
ness. The  way  in  which  a  definite  idea  in  clothing 
manufacture,  aided  by  advertising,  has  finally  domi- 
nated the  entire  industry  makes  an  interesting  story. 
Twelve  years  ago  a  leading  wholesaler  in  the  West 
was  operating  a  chain  of  stores.  He  worked  inde- 
pendently; that  is,  he  was  not  controlled  by  any 
manufacturer  and  bought  in  the  open  market  from 
nearly  all  the  leading  manufacturers,  and  in  the 


THE  CHANNELS  OF  TRADE  39 

course  of  his  business  became  acquainted  with  their 
methods.  At  that  time  clothing  was  made  to  fit  men 
of  average  shape.  When  a  customer  whose  figure  was 
not  normal  came  into  the  store  the  salesmen  had 
to  resort  to  many  little  tricks  of  the  trade  in  order  to 
induce  the  man  to  believe  that  he  was  being  fitted. 

Kealizing  this  situation,  and  finding  it  impossible 
to  secure  odd  sizes  from  any  manufacturer,  the  West- 
ern man  came  to  the  belief  that  there  must  be  in  the 
whole  United  States  a  large  market  for  goods  that 
would  fit  men  who  were  short  and  fat,  or  tall  and 
thin,  or  in  any  way  different  from  the  normal  shape. 
He  sold  out  his  chain  of  retail  stores  and  started  a 
manufacturing  plant  in  Chicago,  designating  his 
clothing  by  a  trade-mark  and  name.  He  did  not 
manufacture  "  regulars  "  at  all,  but  tried  to  make  a 
business  of  odd  sizes.  The  idea  took  root  at  once,  so 
that  the  man  who  made  the  first  trip  as  a  salesman 
in  person  to  open  the  business,  was  able  to  start 
twenty-eight  accounts  in  thirty-two  days.  Naturally 
his  orders  were  smaller  than  they  would  have  been 
if  he  had  carried  a  full  line,  in  the  proportion  of 
about  one  in  ten,  so  that  a  retailer,  whose  stock  or- 
dinarily amounted  to  about  $10,000  a  year,  would 
give  him  an  order  for  $1,000  worth  of  the  odd  sizes. 
The  man  started  out  with  the  idea  that  the  propor- 
tion of  irregular-sized  men  was  comparatively  small. 
In  time,  however,  he  discovered,  much  to  his  sur- 
prise, that  about  50  per  cent  of  the  men  who  regu- 
larly buy  ready-made  clothing  depart  radically  from 
the  standard  scale  of  sizes. 

A  number  of  causes  prevented  a  large  growth  of 
his  business  at  that  time.  The  panic  years  followed 


40  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

his  first  success.  The  bottom  dropped  out  of  the  mar- 
ket and  there  was  a  demand  for  cheap  goods  only. 
Another  thing  worked  against  his  plan.  The  retailer 
usually  would  not  dispose  of  the  odd-sized  goods  when 
the  season  was  in  full  swing,  but  would  hold  them 
over  indefinitely  and  would  never  lower  the  price. 
A  higher  price  in  proportion  to  the  cost  of  the  goods 
was  charged  than  for  regular  goods,  on  the  theory 
that  if  a  man  was  hard  to  fit  he  ought  to  pay  a  better 
price  for  clothes  that  would  fit.  He  ought  also  not  to 
be  particular  as  to  whether  his  clothes  were  this  year's 
cut  or  last  year's.  No  matter  how  old  the  clothing 
got,  it  was  never  marked  down  in  price.  .  Then  again, 
as  the  larger  proportion  of  the  stock  was  "  regulars," 
the -dealer  naturally  bent  every  energy  to  selling  the 
"  regulars "  in  preference  to  showing  the  special 
goods,  because  he  regarded  the  latter  as  practically 
staple  articles. 

Large  clothing  men  in  department  stores  in  the 
cities  positively  refuse  to  sell  trade-marked  clothing 
no  matter  from  whom  it  comes,  and  no  amount  of 
pressure  can  be  brought  to  bear  on  them  to  induce 
them  to  sell  and  to  advertise  any  line  of  goods  so 
marked,  a  possible  exception  being  the  Stetson  hat. 
This  feeling  is  spreading  to  the  smaller  towns,  so  that 
it  is  now  effective  even  in  towns  of  100,000  inhab- 
itants. The  large  manufacturing  clothiers  who  ad- 
vertise must  therefore  do  75  per  cent  of  their  busi- 
ness in  towns  of  under  100,000  population. 

In  doing  business  in  the  small  towns,  competition 
is  so  keen  that  brewery  methods  have  been  adopted. 
Three  or  four  leading  manufacturers  combine  with 
large  capital.  Where  they  can  not  sell  their  goods 


THE  CHANNELS  OF  TRADE  41 

by  ordinary  methods,  they  buy  up  the  retailer,  put 
capital  into  his  business  and  control  his  store.  When 
they  do  not  do  this,  they  make  the  retailer  feel  under 
an  obligation  to  them  by  giving  long  credits.  If  the 
retailer  has  a  bad  year,  or  if  he  has  his  money  tied  up 
in  some  other  venture,  and  finds  it  hard  to  meet  his 
bill  on  the  date  specified,  they  carry  him  over  one  or 
even  two  seasons.  The  retailer  therefore  feels  that 
the  manufacturer  is  his  friend,  and  buys  all  his  goods 
of  the  combination. 

The  odd-size  clothing  idea  did  not  attract  the  very 
serious  attention  of  these  big  manufacturers  during 
the  first  year,  but  its  success  at  the  end  of  that  year 
was  so  pronounced  that  it  practically  forced  the  big 
men  to  make  odd  sizes  also.  They  held  off  a  long- 
while  because  it  was  a  radical  step  to  take,  and  they 
felt  that  their  business  was  on  a  smooth,  easy  basis, 
which  they  did  not  like  to  disturb. 

The  salesmen  of  the  big  houses,  in  calling  on  cus- 
tomers for  the  year's  orders,  would  find  that  about 
one-tenth  of  the  stock  was  the  special  manufacturer's 
odd  sizes.  Then  they  would  bend  all  their  energies 
to  convincing  the  retailer  that  their  own  house  made 
similar  clothes.  What,  then,  was  the  use  of  dividing 
the  bill  ?  Why  not  let  one  house  supply  it  all  ?  For 
various  reasons  this  course  was  pretty  generally  fol- 
lowed. As  a  consequence  the  original  manufacturer's 
business  fell  off,  but  this  does  not  mean  that  it  was 
not  successful,  for  he  continued  to  sell  a  large  amount 
of  goods.  His  business,  of  course,  did  not  grow  to  the 
proportions  anticipated,  but  his  idea  has  practically 
transformed  the  wholesale  clothing  business.  Keady- 
made  clothing  has  been  steadily  approaching  the 


42 


MODERN  ADVERTISING 


standard  of  the  best  tailors,  and  long  ago  distanced 
the  work  of  many  small  tailors.  Advertising  has 
made  this  possible. 

The  wholesale  clothing  business  has  outgrown  one 
of  the  most  terrible  aspects  of  modern  manufacturing 
— the  sweatshop  system.  All 
ready-made  clothing  was  once 
made  under  conditions  which 
were  both  unsanitary  and  inhu- 
mane. The  enlightened  clothing 
manufacturers  who  were  the  first 
to  realize  the  importance  of  popu- 
lar approval  for  their  business, 
began  both  to  advertise  and  to  im- 
prove manufacturing  conditions 
at  the  same  time.  To-day  the 
clothing  of  a  dozen  leading  manu- 
facturers, advertised  in  magazines 
that  go  into  the  best  homes,  is 
made  under  sanitary  conditions, 
in  factories  that  are  models  of 
convenience  and  cleanliness.  As 
the  conditions  under  which  the 
clothing  was  made  were  bet- 
tered, the  clothing  itself  was 
improved. 

As  ready-made  clothing  became  better,  the  ad- 
vertising of  it  was  increased.  There  is  as  much  dif- 
ference in  the  clothing  advertisement  of  to-day  and 
what  did  duty  for  an  advertisement  a  decade  ago  as 
there  is  between  the  clothing  itself  now  and  then. 
The  illustrations  in  those  days  were  crude,  stiff  and 
wooden.  The  clothes  had  no  style ;  the  figure  no  life, 


A  CLOTHING  CUT 
MADE  ONLY  TWELVE 
YEARS  AGO. 


THE  CHANNELS  OF  TRADE  43 

To-day  artists  have  been  paid  as  much  as  $250  for  a 
single  drawing  to  illustrate  a  clothing  announcement, 
and  the  best  writers  of  advertisements  have  been  en- 
gaged. To  this  combination  has  been  added  every- 
thing that  the  engraver  and  printer  can  give.  This 
is  not  only  done  for  the  magazine  advertisements,  but 
drawings  are  made  and  supplied  to  the  retailer  for 
the  newspapers.  Clothing  trade  papers  contain  fine 
and  costly  "  inserts,"  and  the  style-books  of  many 
manufacturers  of  clothing  have  become  examples  of 
the  best  commercial  designing  and  printing.  If  we 
compare  an  old  clothing  cut  with  the  Leyendecker 
design  (page  46),  we  may  see  one  of  the  greatest 
strides  that  skill  in  advertising  has  made. 

The  direct  object  to  be  considered  by  the  general 
advertiser  is  influence  on  the  retailer.  It  depends 
upon  the  retailer's  good-will  whether  the  advertising 
done  by  the  manufacturer  shall  bring  the  desired  re- 
sults. In  general  figures  the  number  of  retail  stores 
confined  to  each  of  the  eleven  industries  in  the  United 
States  is  as  follows : 


Dry -goods 25,000 

Groceries 85,000 

Clothing 16,000 

Boots  and  shoes 20,000 

Drugs 40,000 

Jewelry 15,000 


Hardware 32,000 

Millinery 10,000 

Men's  furnishings 20,000 

Stationery  and  books.  .  .  16,000 
Harness  and  carriages. . .  32,000 


In  connection  with  these  figures,  it  should  be 
borne  in  mind  that  there  are  about  170,000  general 
stores  which  sell  some  things  in  all  lines.  Many  lines 
are  combined  in  the  department  stores.  Every  line 
of  goods  here  mentioned  under  the  heading  of  a  sep- 
arate retail  business  mav  be  sold  in  one  store.  Again 


44 


MODERN  ADVERTISING 


many  otherwise  separate  lines  of  goods  are  combined. 
Men's  furnishing  goods  for  example  are  sold  at  retail 
clothing  stores.  Silverware  is  sold  in  jewelry  stores. 
These  figures  are  merely  suggestive  as  giving  some 

idea  of  the  immense  dis- 
tributing machinery  at 
the  disposal  of  the  adver- 
tiser intelligent  enough 
to  use  it  rightly.  The 
work  of* modern  adver- 
tising has  developed 
these  stores.  An  intelli- 
gent manufacturer  sup- 
plies them  with  adver- 
tising matter  which  they 
can  use  in  their  own  re- 
tail announcements  in 
the  local  papers,  or  can 
send  out  in  the  form  of 
printed  matter  to  cus- 
tomers. This  means  an 
increase  of  good  adver- 
tising in  a  small  retail 
business  and  in  small 
towns. 

Modern  advertising  is 
eliminating  the  middle- 
man. It  is  bringing  the 
manufacturer  in  closer 
contact  with  his  real  customer.  It  has  formed  a  trian- 
gle— the  manufacturer,  the  dealer  and  the  consumer— 
the  three  sides  being  mutually  interdependent.  Along 
the  manufacturer-dealer  side  there  used  to  be  a  string 


AN  EXAMPLE    OF   EARLY    CLOTH- 
ING  DESIGNING. 


THE  CHANNELS  OF  TRADE 


45 


of  commission  men,  jobbers  and  drummers.  Along 
the  dealer-customer  side  were  mutual  acquaintance 
and  mutual  interest.  Along  the  manufacturer-con- 
sumer side  there  was  formerly  little  or  no  connection. 
Before  advertising  had  become  the  power  it  now  is, 
the  retailer  owned  the  consumer,  the  drummer  owned 


THE   BUSINESS  TRIANGLE. 


the  retailer,  the  jobber  owned  the  drummer,  the  com- 
mission man  owned  the  jobber,  and  the  manufacturer 
took  what  he  could  get.  The  only  thing  the  manu- 
facturer could  do  was  to  sell  to  the  commission  man 
or  jobber  at  the  prices  dictated.  He  had  to  manu- 


MODERN   DESIGNING   AS   APPLIED   TO    CLOTHING   ADVERTISING. 


THE  CHANNELS  OF  TRADE  47 

facture  to  order  what  was  wanted.  He  had  to  com- 
pete in  price  and  in  other  conditions  with  other 
manufacturers.  He  had  no  hold  upon  trade  anywhere 
except  through  the  commission  men,  who  were  inde- 
pendent and  bought  where  they  pleased. 

In  those  illogical  days,  dealer  and  customer  were 
acquainted.  The  customer  came  to  him  and  took  his 
word.  He  knew  nothing  about  the  goods  but  what 
the  dealer  told  him.  The  drummer  traveled  over  a 
territory  until  he  acquired  a  constituency  of  his  own. 
To  dealers  the  drummer  was  the  house.  They  bought 
goods  of  him — not  of  the  house  he  represented. 
Whenever  a  drummer  felt  that  he  was  not  getting 
enough  pay,  or  quarreled  with  his  house,  or  wanted 
a  change,  he  transferred  a  large  percentage  of  his 
trade  to  the  house  with  which  he  made  a  new  con- 
nection. The  manufacturer  sold  his  goods  to  a  job- 
ber, or  consigned  them  to  a  commission  man.  This 
was  his  market.  He  had  no  machinery  for  reaching 
the  trade.  He  knew  no  retail  dealers  and  no  retail 
dealers  knew  him.  His  only  way  of  selling  goods 
was  to  use  the  machinery  operated  by  the  jobber. 
By  the  time  his  goods  had  gone  through  all  these 
different  changes  they  had  lost  their  identity. 

Now  came  a  manufacturer  realizing  that  these 
conditions  were  unfair  and  unsafe.  He  knew  that 
the  breaking  of  any  link  in  the  chain  between  his 
factory  and  the  final  market  of  his  goods  cut  off  his 
trade.  He  began  to  advertise  to  reach  the  consumer. 
He  gave  his  goods  a  name  which  could  be  remem- 
bered, and  a  trade-mark  which  could  be  identified. 
His  advertising  bore  fruit.  The  people  came  to  know 
his  goods  and  asked  for  them  by  name.  The  result 
5 


48  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

was  that  the  retail  dealer  when  he  next  gave  his  order 
to  the  drummer  specified  the  advertised  goods.  Thus 
the  manufacturer  established  a  direct  line  to  the  pub- 
lic. He  brought  to  bear  upon  the  actual  consumer  a 
pressure  which  reacted  upon  the  dealer  through  the 
traveling  man  and  the  jobber,  and  finally  reached  the 
manufacturer's  plant. 

Just  as  soon  as  the  manufacturer  accomplished 
this,  the  commission  man,  the  jobber  and  the  travel- 
ing man  became  less  and  less  necessary  to  him,  until 
in  some  lines  of  business  they  have  dropped  out  alto- 
gether. The  manufacturer  cultivates  the  retail  trade 
himself.  He  realizes  that  one,  and  sometimes  two 
profits  have  come  out  of  his  goods  before  they  get  to 
the  retailer.  He  realizes  that  he  can  spend  his  money 
in  advertising,  create  a  market  for  the  goods,  save  one 
or  two  extra  profits,  and  make  more  money.  In  addi- 
tion to  this  he  is  creating  an  important  asset  in  the 
name  and  trade-mark  of  his  goods — an  asset  vested  in 
publicity  which  no  competition,  no  trade  combina- 
tion and  no  influence  of  drummer  .or  retailer  can  take 
away  from  him. 

No  matter  how  clever  or  insinuating  a  salesman 
may  be,  how  wide  his  acquaintance,  or  how  persistent 
his  efforts,  he  can  not  accomplish  as  much  as  adver- 
tising. A  piece  of  printed  matter — short,  direct  and 
to  the  point,  worded  in  the  right  way,  illustrated, 
printed  and  dressed  up  to  catch  the  eye  and  hold  the 
mind — can  make  a  thousand  calls  while  the  drummer 
is  making  one.  It  can  not  do  all  the  work  of  the 
drummer,  but  it  can  keep  working  away  every  week, 
week  after  week,  for  six  months  or  a  year,  and  pro- 
duce a  greater  impression  than  calls  from  the  drum- 
mer. 


THE  CHANNELS  OF  TRADE  49 

After  the  manufacturer  has  told  his  story  in  small 
items  forced  upon  the  attention  of  the  trade  until 
each  retailer  has  been,  against  his  will  and  without  his 
knowledge,  convinced  of  the  merit  of  the  goods  and 
of  the  fact  that  the  public  wants  them,  three-fourths 
of  the  drummer's  work  is  done.  Here  is  a  pertinent 
instance:  A  house  which  made  Babbitt  metal,  hith- 
erto always  sold  by  traveling  men,  was  induced  to  try 
a  "  mail  series."  To  make  the  test  thorough,  a  State 
in  which  the  house  had  had  no  previous  trade  was 
selected.  To  a  list  of  prospective  customers  they  sent 
printed  matter,  one  circular  a  week  for  thirteen  weeks. 
Then  they  sent  a  bright  young  man  to  travel  over  this 
territory.  The  results  were  phenomenal.  Order 
after  order  was  sent  in,  and  finally  a  request  was  made  ; 
for  a  year's  contract  at  an  advanced  salary.  The 
salesman  got  it.  When  he  arrived  at  the  home  office 
he  was  the  hero  of  the  hour.  He  sat  by  the  side  of 
"  the  old  man's  "  desk  and  explained  how  he  did  it. 
When  the  man  who  had  put  up  the  money  for  the 
"  mail  series  "  ventured  to  suggest  that  the  circulars 
might  have  had  something  to  do  with  the  results,  the 
drummer  airily  "  turned  down  "  the  suggestion.  He 
had  sold  the  goods  himself.  The  "  mail  series " 
had  not  been  heard  from. 

The  company,  realizing  that  they  had  a  treasure, 
gave  the  young  man  virgin  territory  in  another  State.    : 
Never  a  drummer  and  never  a  single  piece  of  printed 
matter  had  previously  gone  to  that  State.     The  young    j 
man  started  out  with  flying  colors.    He  "  fell  down 
at  the  first  stop.     After  trying  six  or  seven  towns,    j 
without  getting  even  an  audience  with  his  customers, 
to  say  nothing  of  an  order,  he  was  called  home.    The 


A  New  Note  in  Piano  Players 

THAT'S  what  the  Harmonist  is.  It  is  a  new  player,  or 
rather,  a  set  of  players.  It  presents  fresh  ideas.  It  gives 
you  new  talking  arguments.  No  matter  how  much  your 
customers  know  about  piano  players,  they  will  find  the  Har- 
monist has  many  distinct  points  of  advantage  which  will  appeal 
to  them.  The  Harmonist  sells  easier  and  stays  sold  better  than 
other  players.  The  man  who  gets  the  agency  won't  want  to 
give  it  up.  The  man  who  gets  the  agency  will  be  a  formidable 
competitor  of  yours.  If  you  get  the  agency,  you  will  be  a  for- 
midable competitor  of  other  dealers.  Something  had  better  be 
done  about  these  things  right  away. 

ROTH     ftf     ENGELHARDT 

Proprietor.  P«rle«  Piano  Player  Company 

WINDSOR    ARCADE        FIFTH    AVENUE         NEW    YORK 


Che 


JUrmofll 


MAILING    CARD    (ONE   OF   A   SERIES). 


THE  CHANNELS  OF  TRADE  51 

entire  success  of  the  drummer  in  the  first  instance 
had  been  based  on  a  careful  cultivation  of  the  terri- 
tory by  the  right  sort  of  printed  matter. 

Advertising  sells  goods,  not  on  the  engaging  quali- 
ties of  the  traveling  man,  but  on  the  merits  of  the 
goods  and  the  knowledge  of  those  merits  which  have 
been  lodged  in  the  mind  of  the  retailer.  It  is  not  the 
direct  advertising  of  manufacturer  to  dealer  alone  that 
accomplishes  this — it  is  still  more  the  advertising  of 
the  manufacturer  to  the  public,  which  backs  up  direct 
work  upon  the  dealer.  Printed  matter  in  the  form 
of  circulars  is  one  link  in  the  chain  of  publicity,  which 
unites  the  goods,  the  general  advertising,  the  dealer 
and  his  customers. 

0f  the  two  classes  of  general  advertiser,  let  us 
consider  first  the  man  whose  product  is  in  such  uni- 
versal use  that  advertising  everywhere  helps  him. 
Take,  for  instance,  a  breakfast  food,  which  can 
scarcely  be  exploited  anywhere  and  not  find  mouths 
to  consume  it.  Of  course,  an  advertiser  can  pay  too 
much  per  mouth  even  for  a  breakfast  food,  but  within 
almost  any  limit  wherever  his  advertising  goes  there 
must  be  a  demand.  But  few  manufacturers  have  such 
business.  Many  have  an  article  which  can  be  used 
only  by  a  small  percentage  of  people.  What  can  such 
men  do  with  general  advertising?  They  can  not  use 
large  space,  and  can  not  use  many  mediums.  Every 
dollar  they  spend  must  buy  a  dollar's  worth  of  pub- 
licity in  some  form. 

A  typical  case  is  a  man  doing  a  good  business, 
and  whose  goods  are  found  in  a  number  of  stores, 
fairly  well  placed,  but  by  no  means  universally  in 
use.  Such  a  man  might  be  a  manufacturer  of  wri- 


52  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

ting-paper.  Of  course,  everybody  uses  writing-paper 
in  some  form.  The  census  shows  that  only  5  per 
cent  of  the  population  are  unable  to  write,  but  only 
a  comparatively  small  part  of  the  95  per  cent 
care  what  sort  of  paper  they  write  on.  The  people 
to  whom  fine  writing-papers  appeal  are  few.  The 
problem  is  so  to  select  the  medium  that  you  shall 
reach  a  large  number  of  people  who  are  in  the  habit 
of  using  the  finest  papers,  or  who  can  be  taught  to  do 
so.  Naturally  the  mediums  having  the  highest  class 
of  readers  and  the  largest  circulation  would  be  se- 
lected. Such  advertising  would  accomplish  only  cer- 
tain results,  and  even  then  a  good  deal  would  be 
wasted.  In  order  to  make  it  effective  the  most  care- 
ful work  must  be  done  with  the  retail  dealer. 

Inquiries  resulting  from  such  advertising  cost 
more  per  inquiry  than  in  a  larger  expenditure. 
Therefore,  each  inquiry  represents  greater  value  to 
the  advertiser,  the  expenditure  must  be  made  with 
greater  care,  and  it  must  be  more  vigorously  con- 
ducted to  make  it  productive.  Probably  not  more 
than  1  per  cent  of  the  population  are  interested  in 
high-priced,  exclusive  styles  of  writing-paper — that 
is,  about  750,000  people.  How  is  one  to  reach  these 
750,000  people  with  the  least  expense  and  how  secure 
the  greatest  proportion  of  orders  ? 

The  appropriation  must  be  small,  because  the  busi- 
ness will  never  justify  a  large  one.  By  a  large  ap- 
propriation we  mean  such  an  amount  of  money  as 
could  be  spent  by  the  manufacturer  of  a  food  prod- 
uct— for  instance,  a  packing-house.  Next,  the  ad- 
vertisements must  be  small  in  size,  or  the  number  of 
mediums  will  become  excessively  limited.  Third, 


THE  CHANNELS  OF  TRADE  53 

every  advertisement  must  have  in  it  a  "hook"  of 
some  kind  which  will  draw  an  inquiry.  This  inquiry 
must  be  cleverly  angled  for,  as  it  is  the  basis  of  the 
whole  method  of  work.  Such  advertising  is  clearly 
to  be  the  work  of  fine  strategy  if  it  be  successful. 

The  large  advertiser  overcomes  the  public  by 
the  force  of  numbers.  His  advertisements  are  so 
many  and  so  big  that  they  sweep  everything  before 
them.  The  small  advertiser  must  be  a  skilful  tac- 
tician. He  must  get  results  by  the  cleverness  of 

his  work. 

The  writing-paper  man,  whose  carefully  scattered 
advertisements  bring  in  a  certain  number  of  inqui- 
ries, promptly  proceeds  to  turn  these  inquiries  into 
the  greatest  number  of  profitable  accounts.  He  is 
not  actually  reaching  the  consumer.  He  does  not 
expect  to  get  direct  orders  from  women  who  buy 
writing-paper.  What  he  tries  to  get  is  an  actual 
reply  from  some  prospective  user  of  writing-paper 
in  a  town  where  he  knows  there  is  a  dealer  who  ought 
to  sell  his  paper. 

Such  a  dealer  will  belong  to  one  of  three  classes: 
He  may  be  one  who  already  carries  the  advertiser's 
paper  in  stock,  in  which  case  the  next  step  would  be 
easy.  Mrs.  Inquirer  would  be  referred  to  Mr.  Dealer. 
Mr.  Dealer  would  be  notified  about  Mrs.  Inquirer, 
and  everybody  would  be  happy.  But  the  dealer  may 
be  one  who  does  not  carry  the  paper.  He,  however, 
has  been  reached  week  by  week  by  the  printed  circu- 
lars, but  has  not  yet  been  brought  to  the  point  ot 
placing  an  order  and  becoming  a  regular  dealer  in 
the  advertiser's  paper.  An  inquiry  from  ^som 
woman  in  his  town,  presumably  known  to  him,  is 


54  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

pected  to  be  the  one  last  argument  necessary  to  wring 
from  him  his  first  order. 

The  third  class  of  dealer  is  the  man  who  neither 
carries  the  papers  in  stock  nor  has  had  them  called 
to  his  attention.  This  dealer  will  be  found  only 
in  small  towns  because  at  least  one  dealer  in  every 
good-sized  town,  of  about  10,000  population,  will 
have  received  full  and  ample  information.  This  third 
dealer  will  now  receive  word  that  a  woman  in  his 
town  wants  to  buy  the  advertiser's  paper,  and  that  he 
had  better  carry  it  in  stock.  His  name  will  be  added 
to  the  mailing  list,  and  hereafter  he  will  get  circulars. 

Thus  the  campaign  goes  on,  coaxing  replies  from 
women,  whose  names  are  used  to  influence  dealers. 
The  advertising  is  direct  only  to  the  extent  of  getting 
these  inquiries.  Its  real  purpose  is  to  influence  the 
reluctant  dealer.  If  the  matter  is  placed  before  the 
dealer  skilfully,  his  attention  being  called  repeatedly 
to  the  advertisements  in  the  magazines,  and  if  these 
advertisements  are  shown  to  him  in  proof-sheet  form, 
with  a  little  estimate  of  the  actual  circulation  they 
are  getting,  he  will  believe  that  the  advertiser  is 
doing  a  great  deal  more  advertising  than  he  really 
is.  The  dealer  will  then  begin  to  help  out  the  ad- 
vertising— first,  by  buying  the  paper,  and  next,  by 
promoting  its  sale. 

This  advertiser  then  devises  plans  for  making  the 
dealer  a  larger  dealer,  thus  increasing  the  output  of 
his  paper.  He  offers  attractive  advertisements  all 
ready  to  place  in  the  dealer's  local  papers,  the  dealer 
paying  for  the  space.  He  sends  printed  matter  to 
a  selected  list  of  customers  whom  the  dealer  knows, 
and  who  will  be  especially  influenced  by  the  weight 


THE  CHANNELS  OF  TRADE  55 

of  a  local  dealer's  name.  He  sends  window  displays 
by  which  the  papers  can  be  shown  in  the  most  attrac- 
tive way,  and  if  the  town  is  large  enough,  he  sends 
street-car  cards  for  the  local  trolley  line. 

The  general  advertiser  may  not  need  to  follow 
these  plans.  Any  campaign,  however,  whether  large 
or  small,  is  better  when  aided  by  skilful,  intelligent 
"  follow-up  matter "  and  definite,  systematic  work 
generally.  The  larger  the  campaign,  the  more  profit- 
able it  will  be,  but  such  plans  are  absolutely  vital  to 
a  comparatively  small  advertiser.  What  is  said  in 
the  circulars,  what  is  said  in  the  "  form  "  letters  to 
inquirers  and  dealers,  and  for  that  matter,  what  is 
said  in  the  advertisements,  will  have  everything  to 
do  with  making  the  plan  effective.  It  must  be  borne 
in  mind  that  such  things  are  not  altogether  new  even 
to  the  most  unprogressive  dealer ;  everything  must  be 
brought  to  his  attention  in  a  new  way.  There  must 
be  a  certain  freshness  of  effect,  a  new  point  of  view. 
It  is  often  easy  to  present  an  old  and  well-worn  plan 
in  so  new  a  guise  that  it  will  have  the  effect  of  a 
brand-new  idea. 

Take  Jim  Dumps  and  Sunny  Jim  for  an  example. 
The  psychological  secret  of  the  success  of  this  particu- 
lar form  of  advertising  harks  back  to  the  old  "  before 
and  after  "  idea,  which  was  an  essential  part  of  every 
patent-medicine  advertisement  fifteen  or  twenty 
years  ago.  The  old,  well-worn  and  hackneyed  idea, 
dressed  up  in  its  new  form,  the  transformation  of 
Jim  Dumps  into  Sunny  Jim,  struck  the  public  with 
new  force,  and  few  of  them  reflected  that  the  idea 
was  one  with  which  they  had  been  familiar  from 
childhood. 


56  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

It  should  not  be  forgotten  that  the  initial  pur- 
pose of  nearly  all  general  advertising  is  to  establish 
desirable  accounts.  After  dealers  once  carry  the 
goods,  general  advertising  aims  to  keep  up  the  sale, 
but  that  is  a  later  purpose.  Most  general  advertising 
is  directed  to  getting  the  goods  into  the  stock  of  all 
desirable  dealers.  After  you  have  sold  a  man  a  bill 
of  goods  and  made  him  a  regular  customer,  he  will 
himself  do  a  large  part  of  the  selling  afterward.  Of 
course,  the  advertising  helps.  If  the  goods  are  on  a 
dealer's  shelves  they  are  apt  to  be  shown  to  the  cus- 
tomer, but  it  will  simplify  matters  if  the  customer 
asks  for  them.  That  is  why  general  advertising 
works  both  ways.  It  induces  the  dealer  to  sell  the 
goods  and  it  induces  the  customer  to  ask  for  them. 
It  simplifies  and  shortens  the  whole  buying  and  sell- 
ing process. 

There  was  once  a  corset  company  of  considerable 
reputation  that  had  been  advertising  for  many  years 
in  the  usual  way.  It  bought  space  in  all  the  accept- 
able publications  and  put  therein  the  familiar  corset 
girl.  It  did  nothing  else,  and  its  business  had  the 
natural  growth  of  any  business  in  ordinarily  good 
times.  Its  advertising  may  have  added  new  accounts, 
but  the  probability  is  that  it  left  things  about  as  they 
were,  the  new  accounts  being  brought  in  by  the  more 
enterprising  traveling  men. 

A  plan  was  presented  to  that  company  whereby 
its  magazine  advertising  should  be  used  to  influence 
new  accounts.  The  corset  company  insisted  that 
there  were  no  new  accounts,  that  its  corsets  were  al- 
ready handled  by  all  of  the  dealers  in  the  country. 
They  said  this  without  reservation.  The  total  num.- 


THE  CHANNELS  OF  TRADE  57 

her  of  actual  accounts  which  the  company  then  had 
was  found  to  be  about  7,500.  A  carefully  made  list 
showed  that  there  were  something  like  17,000  retail 
stores  in  this  country  which  sold  corsets.  These  stores 
were  dry-goods,  department,  notions  and  fancy-goods 
stores. 

Many  of  these,  of  course,  were  undesirable,  the 
business  being  too  small  and  the  credit  too  insecure. 
From  that  total  a  fairly  good  list  of  about  14,000 
names  was  selected.  These  were  checked  off  with  the 
regular  list  of  the  corset  company,  leaving  a  very 
good  mailing  list  of  6,000  odd  names — dealers  to 
whom  the  corset  company  did  not  sell,  and  to  whom 
it  would  like  to  sell. 

The  magazine  advertising  was  freshened  up.  The 
conventional  corset  girl  was  abandoned  and  a  new 
style  of  girl  was  introduced  in  the  advertisements 
with  remarks  which  would  draw  out  an  inquiry  for 
a  certain  desirable  booklet  which  was  named  and 
described  in  the  advertisement.  Meanwhile,  two 
quick-acting  "  mail  series  "  were  started  addressed 
to  two  separate  lists,  one  the  list  of  regular  custom- 
ers, the  other  the  list  of  non-customers  which  the 
company  desired  to  secure. 

The  first  circular  congratulated  the  dealers  on 
selling  the  corset,  pointed  out  its  new  features,  al- 
luded to  the  advertising,  gave  samples  of  the  adver- 
tisements that  would  appear,  harped  quite  diligently 
upon  the  circulation  the  advertising  was  getting,  and 
suggested  the  propriety  of  immediate  and  frequent 
orders. 

The  other  "  mail  series  "  was  of  the  proselyting 
character.  It  aimed  to  lead  the  6,000  dealers  into  a 


58  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

corner,  there  to  be  taught  the  corset  lesson.  It  sup- 
plied them  with  corset  facts  and  advertising  facts. 
It  made  it  clear  to  them  that  women  were  marching 
by  the  doors  of  their  stores,  seeking  other  stores  for 
the  purchase  of  that  particular  corset.  It  produced 
statistics  to  show  that  there  were  very  few  women  in 
this  country  who  had  not  seen  the  advertisement  of 
this  particular  corset.  Meanwhile  inquiries  were  com- 
ing in  with  requests  for  the  booklet.  These  replies 
were  sifted  and  sorted  and  sent  off  to  the  nearest 
dealer  with  a  "  there-now,-what-did-I-tell-you  ?  "  com- 
munication. 

Such  advertising  is  not  to  be  measured  by  the 
agate  line.  There  is  only  one  sure  standard,  and  that 
is  results.  Space  is  measured  by  the  agate  line,  but 
advertising  is  measured  by  the  amount  of  actual  busi- 
ness brought  in  by  it.  The  results  in  this  case  were 
that  the  number  of  active  accounts  was  raised  from 
7,500  to  11,000;  the  factory  was  more  than  doubled 
in  capacity,  and  the  corset  itself  was  more  firmly  en- 
trenched than  ever  in  the  favor  of  women,  this  not- 
withstanding that  there  were  other  corsets  doing  very 
good  advertising  at  the  same  time. 

This  advertising  was  not  a  large  campaign  as  com- 
pared with  some  others.  Nor  was  it  as  small  as  the 
paper  dealer's.  It  was  simply  the  average,  but  may 
serve  to  prove  that  the  magazine  advertisements  are 
only  one  of  the  forces  which  bring  results. 

No  question  is  so  frequently  asked  the  advertising 
man  as  this:  "  About  how  much  money  will  it  take 
to  see  this  thing  through,  and  find  out  whether  there 
is  anything  in  it  or  not  ?  "  This  reminds  one  of  the 
question  which  was  asked  of  Abraham  Lincoln: 


THE  CHANNELS  OF  TRADE  59 

"  How  long  should  a  man's  legs  be  ? "  Mr.  Lincoln 
replied,  "  They  ought  to  be  long  enough  to  reach 
from  his  hips  to  the  ground."  An  advertising  ap- 
propriation should  be  large  enough  to  accomplish  the 
results  sought. 

A  common  type  of  advertiser  is  the  one  who  has 
only  a  little  ready  money.  He  wishes  to  start  his 
advertising  work  in  a  very  small  way,  making  good 
as  he  goes  along.  He  has  no  capital,  but  he  is  will- 
ing to  put  into  the  advertising  all  the  money  he 
makes.  The  man  who  aims  to  lift  himself  over  the 
fence  by  his  boot-straps  is  in  the  same  class  with  this 
advertiser.  It  is  true  that  there  are  two  or  three 
advertisers  of  national  fame  and  large  fortunes  who 
began  in  practically  this  way.  But  they  began  at  a 
time  when  advertising  conditions  were  simple,  and 
when  an  advertising  success  was  more  easily  obtained. 
They  belong  to  that  brilliant  class  known  as  ex- 
ceptions. An  advertising  appropriation  should  be 
not  merely  large  enough  to  provide  for  success,  but 
large  enough  to  provide  for  a  failure  at  the  begin- 
ning. 

The  thing  to  be  done  in  the  case  of  a  compara- 
tively small  appropriation  is  to  apply  it  so  cleverly 
and  so  judiciously  to  handle  the  "  follow-up  "  matter, 
the  circulars  to  dealers,  that  a  certain  territory  or  a 
certain  circulation  will  be  cultivated  thoroughly.  The 
man  whose  goods  are  pretty  well  stocked  in  stores 
about  the  country  has  a  distinct  advantage.  Still  a 
good  deal  of  energy  must  be  directed  to  getting  the 
goods  into  other  towns.  'No  national  campaign  will 
ever  realize  its  fullest  possibilities  until  there  is  at 
least  one  store  in  every  small  town  and  several  stores 


60  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

in  the  large  towns  which  carry  the  goods  in  stock. 
You  can  not  reckon  without  your  dealer.  This  is 
where  advertising  plans  come  into  play  to  the  hest 
advantage. 

A  tobacco  trust  with  three-quarters  of  a  million 
dollars  to  spend  can  adopt  the  overwhelming  style, 
using  large  space  in  all  kinds  of  publications,  giving 
little  thought  to  the  selection  of  mediums,  less  to 
the  preparation  of  copy,  and  hurl  the  whole  on- 
clnught  at  the  country  in  such  a  mass  that  it  can  not 
be  overlooked.  Undoubtedly  advertising  of  that 
kind,  no  matter  how  well  handled,  is  overdone.  There 
is  too  much  of  it.  When  we  come  down  the  scale  to 
the  man  who  starts  at  $5,000  a  year,  and  whose  ar- 
ticle appeals  to  5  or  10  per  cent  of  the  population, 
the  real  advertising  problem  is  found.  How  can  so 
little  money  be  made  to  present  the  article  to  so  many 
people?  It  is  in  such  instances  that  the  advertise- 
ment, however  small,  is  only  a  cleverly  worded 
"  hook "  fishing  for  a  reply,  and  that  upon  the 
reply,  the  way  it  is  handled,  and  the  way  the 
prospective  customer  is  forced  upon  the  prospective 
dealer,  the  whole  structure  depends.  The  letter  of 
inquiry  is  the  corner-stone  of  the  small  advertiser's 
plan. 

More  advertisers  have  failed  through  not  appre- 
ciating the  importance  of  the  inquiry,  and  through 
not  using  it  in  the  right  way,  than  through  any  other 
one  defect  in  their  plans.  They  reason  that  an  in- 
quiry is  simply  one  sale,  and,  therefore,  do  not  treat 
it  with  sufficient  importance.  The  first  inquiry  from 
any  given  town  is  considerably  more  than  a  sale.  It 
may  be  the  beginning  of  business  in  that  town.  It 


THE  CHANNELS  OF  TRADE  61 

may  mean  an  account  with  a  good  dealer  that  will  last 
as  long  as  you  and  the  dealer  remain  in  business. 
Inquiries  would  be  too  expensive  otherwise  to  be  ad- 
vertised for  in  this  way — that  is,  merely  to  make  one 
sale  of  one  article. 

It  is  a  difficult  thing  to  theorize  about  advertising. 
No  advertising  is  successful  which  does  not  sell  the 
goods,  and  no  advertising  is  unsuccessful  which  does. 
Each  advertising  plan  proves  what  its  merits  are  as 
it  goes  along,  but  the  most  that  the  wisest  advertising 
man  can  do  is  to  make  a  plan  which  covers  all  the 
incidents  of  his  experience,  and  then  watch  the  plan. 
There  never  was  a  right  advertising  plan  that  was  not 
altered  and  changed  each  month. 

Every  inquiry  should  be  scrutinized  for  sugges- 
tions as  to  future  wordings  of  advertisements  and 
reading  matter.  The  entire  inspiration  comes  from 
people  who  respond  to  advertising  or  who  fail  to  re- 
spond. The  way  in  which  they  respond,  or  fail 
to  respond,  is  a  measure  of  the  success  or  failure 
of  your  advertising.  Nothing  will  show  you  the 
weak  spots  in  a  plan  so  quickly  as  the  absence  of 
replies. 

Advertising  is  a  great,  though  almost  unknown 
force,  a  force  made  up  of  a  hundred  different  ele- 
ments, each  one  too  intangible  to  be  denned.  It  is 
something  which,  properly  directed,  becomes  a  power- 
ful agency  in  influencing  human  customs  and  man- 
ners. All  the  great  forces  that  have  moved  the 
race,  the  eloquence  of  the  orator,  the  fervor  of  the 
religious  enthusiast,  superstition,  terror,  panic,  hyp- 
notism— all  these  things  are  utilized  in  advertising 
All  the  emotions  of  the  race  are  played  upon,  ap- 


62  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

pealed  to,  coaxed,  cultivated  and  utilized.  The  man 
who  can  tell  most  nearly  what  one  thousand  people 
will  think  upon  any  given  topic/will  come  nearest  to 
producing  successful  advertising,  but  no  human  being 
can  really  foretell  the  actual  results  of  any  adver- 
tising that  was  ever  planned. 


CHAPTEK   IV 

MAGAZINES    AND    NEWSPAPERS 

ANYTHING  through  which  an  advertiser  calls  at- 
tention to  his  wares  is  a  medium,  but  magazines  and 
newspapers  are  usually  referred  to  when  the  term  is 
used.  Trade  papers  are  also  mediums,  but  many  of 
them  reach  dealers  only:  an  advertising  medium  is 
supposed  to  reach  consumers,  and  dealers  are  hardly 
to  be  considered  as  consumers.  By  stretching  the 
word's  limits  a  little  an  advertiser  sometimes  speaks 
of  street-cars,  circulars  and  billboards  as  mediums. 

The  largest  and  most  important  medium  consists 
of  periodicals,  classified  as  magazines,  newspapers  and 
trade  papers.  In  the  language  of  advertising,  a  mag- 
azine is  a  monthly  publication,  while  a  popular  peri- 
odical published  once  a  week  is  a  "  weekly."  The 
monthly  magazines  are  described  as  general  maga- 
zines, such  as  the  Century  or  Scribner's,  and  as 
woman's  publications,  such  as  the  Ladies'  Home 
Journal  or  the  Delineator. 

Weeklies  are  of  a  popular  and,  generally,  of  a 
semi-news  character,  such  as  Collier's  or  the  Satur- 
day Evening  Post.  Agricultural  publications,  such 
as  the  Farm  Journal  or  Farm  and  Fireside,  and  re- 
ligious papers  of  the  class  of  the  Christian  Herald  or 
the  Epworth  Herald,  are  also  published  weekly,  as  a 
rule.  According  to  some  classifications,  the  last  two 


64  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

would  be  called  "  class  "  papers,  although  class  papers 
are  really  those  otherwise  known  as  "  trade  "  papers. 

It  is  an  open  question  with  many  large  adver- 
tisers which  are  the  better  mediums,  magazines  or 
newspapers.  For  some  articles  and  for  some  adver- 
tisers there  is  a  decided  choice,  while  other  adver- 
tisers can  and  do  use  both.  A  magazine  lasts  thirty 
days,  while  the  newspaper  dies  every  day.  A  maga- 
zine has  some  permanence.  It  is  a  bound  book,  and 
read  slowly  by  people  with  some  leisure.  Its  adver- 
tising pages  present  a  permanent  record  for  a  month, 
while  the  newspaper  is  read  at  a  glance  and  then 
thrown  aside.  The  circulation  of  a  magazine  is  gen- 
eral and  well  distributed.  It  can  not  be  Confined  to 
any  city,  State  or  group  of  States. 

The  newspapers  of  a  given  town,  or  series  of 
towns,  or  of  a  given  State,  may  be  used  to  advertise 
an  article  in  a  given  territory,  either  because  the 
article  is  appropriate  to  that  locality,  or  because  the 
advertiser  wishes  to  limit  his  expenditure  to  that  ter- 
ritory, in  order  to  do  special  work  there,  for  work 
may  sometimes  be  better  carried  on  State  by  State 
than  all  at  once  over  the  entire  country.  Newspapers 
appeal  to  advertisers  because  they  act  quickly.  An 
advertisement  may  be  inserted  in  any  newspaper 
within  twenty-four  hours  of  the  date  of  publication, 
while  an  advertisement  in  a  magazine  must  be  ready 
from  three  to  eight  weeks  in  advance  of  the  date  of 
publication,  according  to  the  size  of  the  edition  which 
the  magazine  prints.  Meanwhile  trade  conditions 
may  change  radically  and  in  the  case  of  many  articles 
trade  emergencies  must  be  kept  in  mind. 

On  the  other  hand,  newspapers,  as  a  rule,  will 


66  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

admit  of  only  one  style  of  design,  that  is,  designs  of 
a  character  which  will  print  easily  with  rapid  web 
perfecting  presses,  using  cheap  paper  with  an  inferior 
quality  of  ink. 

The  magazine  is  printed  more  slowly,  and  with 
better  ink.  It  can  use  what  are  known  as  "  half- 
tone "  cuts  as  well  as  line  drawings,  and  in  some  of 
the  magazines  where  the  paper  of  the  advertising 
pages  is  the  same  as  in  the  body  of  the  magazine,  a 
great  degree  of  artistic  printing  can  be  secured.  As  a 
rule,  however,  it  is  only  publications  with  limited  cir- 
culations that  are  able  to  give  advertising  designs  the 
careful  printing  they  require.  Magazines  and  news- 
papers appeal  directly  to  the  public,  while  the  class 
papers  appeal  to  limited  constituencies,  made  up  of 
those  interested  in  the  one  subject  represented  by  the 
paper.  Any  scheme  of  general  advertising  must  con- 
sider either  the  newspapers  or  the  magazines.  They 
are  absolutely  essential.  Nevertheless,  there  are  ad- 
vertisers who  have  built  up  large  businesses  without 
using  either,  through  methods  which  utilized  posters, 
street-car  cards  and  circulars. 

Statistics,  as  to  the  character,  circulation  and 
number  of  publications  are  difficult  to  obtain.  The 
best  possible  authority  l  shows  that  in  March,  1903, 
there  were  issued  in  the  United  States  20,485  dif- 
ferent publications,  of  which  2,215  were  published 
daily,  54  triweekly,  499  semiweekly,  14,455  weekly, 
2  trimonthly,  55  biweekly,  263  semimonthly,  2,710 
monthly,  2  semiquarterly,  68  bimonthly  and  162 
quarterly.  The  post-office  recognizes  as  a  periodical 
anything  issued  four  times  a  year,  but  no  publication 
1  American  Newspaper  Directory,  March,  1903. 


MAGAZINES  AND  NEWSPAPERS 


67 


issued  less  frequently  than  once  a  month  is  of  interest 
or  value  to  an  advertiser. 

The  census  reports  for  1900  show  only  18,226 
publications  of  all  kinds,  issued  from  15,305  separate 
establishments,  having  an  aggregate  circulation  per 
issue  of  114,299,334  copies,  and  an  aggregate  yearly 
circulation  of  8,168,148,749  copies,  enough,  by  the 


I         I  2,000  to  3,500 

E  3,500  to  6,000 
6,000  to  9,500 
9,500  and  over 


MAP   SHOWING   THE   NUMBER   OF    INHABITANTS  TO    EACH  WEEKLY 
PUBLICATION. 

Showing  that  there  are   more   readers   to   a  publication  in  the 
southeastern  states  than  in  any  other  part  of  the  United  States. 

way,  to  give  every  man,  woman  and  child  in  the 
country  107  copies  of  something  every  year.  They 
show  further  that  these  publications  received  in  1900 
an  aggregate  revenue  of  $175,789,610,  of  which 
$79,928,483,  or  45.5  per  cent,  was  paid  for  subscrip- 
tions, and  $95,861,127,  or  54.5  per  cent,  for  adver- 
tising space.  These  statistics  prove  conclusively  that 
our  present  periodical  press  is  possible  only  through 


68 


MODERN  ADVERTISING 


the  advertising  patronage,  which  bears  the  chief  bur- 
den of  the  expense. 

The  amount  of  money  represented  by  the  total 
revenue  from  the  sale  of  space  in  a  year  by  all  peri- 
odicals, $95,861,127,  seems  small  in  comparison  with 
the  total  probable  expenditure  for  advertising  in  this 
country  of  $600,000,000.  It  should  be  remembered, 
however,  that  this  represents  only  the  net  cost  of 


ft- 


MAP   SHOWING  THAT  TEN   STATES   POSSESS   81.08   PER    CENT  OF 
THE   COMBINED   CIRCULATION   OF  ALL   PUBLICATIONS. 

space;  that  from  10  to  15  per  cent  is  to  be  added  to 
this  in  the  way  of  commissions;  that  there  was  a  fur- 
ther cost  in  the  preparation  of  designs  and  copy,  in 
the  making  of  plates  and  expressage  upon  them,  and 
in  various  other  legitimate  expenses  in  connection 
with  advertising;  and  also  that  the  various  other  me- 
diums employed,  such  as  billboards,  street-cars  and 
circulars,  while  relatively  less  important  than  peri- 
odicals, are  comparatively  more  expensive. 


MAGAZINES  AND  NEWSPAPERS  69 

According  to  the  same  census  there  are  4,170  in- 
habitants in  the  country  to  each  publication.  This, 
taken  in  connection  with  the  fact  given  above  that 
there  are  107  copies  of  some  publication  issued  during 
the  year  for  every  inhabitant  of  the  country,  shows 
how  possible  it  is  to  reach  every  buying  person  with 
properly  directed  advertising.  A  division  of  all  pub- 
lications into  classes,  according  to  the  periods  of  issue, 
is  given  in  the  census  report  as  follows:  Daily,  2,226; 
triweekly,  62;  semiweekly,  637;  weekly,  12,979; 
monthly,  1,817;  quarterly,  237;  all  other  classes,  268. 

If  these  periodicals  are  classified  according  to  the 
character  of  their  reading  matter,  the  statistics  stand 
as  follows: 

News,  politics  and  family  reading 14,867 

Religion 952 

Agriculture,    horticulture,    dairying    and    stock 

raising 307 

Commerce,    finance,   insurance,  real-estate,  and 

trade  journals 710 

General  literature,  including  magazines 239 

Medicine  and  surgery Ill 

Law 62 

Science  and  mechanics 66 

Fraternal  organizations 200 

Education  and  history,  college  and  school  peri- 
odicals   259 

Society,  art,  music  and  fashion 88 

Miscellaneous,  including  Sunday  newspapers ....  365 

Of  the  daily  newspapers  there  are  199  copies  for 
every  1,000  inhabitants,  of  the  weeklies  there  are 
524  for  every  1,000  inhabitants,  and  of  the  monthlies 
520  for  every  1,000  inhabitants.  It  may  be  added 
that  there  are  1,052  periodicals  published  in  various 


70 


MODERN  ADVERTISING 


languages,  of  which  613  are  in  German,  115  in  Scan- 
dinavian, 39  in  Spanish,  35  in  Italian,  28  in  Bohe- 
mian, 27  in  French,  33  in  Polish.  Some  of  these, 
and  notably  the  German  and  French  publications,  are 
important  advertising  mediums. 

The  distribution  of  the  circulation  of  all  publi- 
cations, bearing,  as  it  does,  a  close  relation  to  the  dis- 


MAP  SHOWING  THE   NUMBER  OF  INHABITANTS  TO   EACH  DAILY 
PUBLICATION. 

Showing  also  that  the  greatest  number  of  readers  to  a  daily 
newspaper  is  in  the  southeastern  states. 

tribution  of  the  population,  is  important  to  the  ad- 
vertiser. Statistics  show  that  four-fifths  of  the  aggre- 
gate circulation  of  all  periodicals  is  confined  to  ten 
States  and  that  these  ten  States  are  located  in  the 
northeast  part  of  the  country.  These  States  are 
Maine,  New  York,  New  Jersey,  Massachusetts, 


MAGAZINES  AND  NEWSPAPERS  71 

Pennsylvania,  Ohio,  Michigan,  Illinois,  Missouri  and 
Tennessee. 

The  publications  about  which  it  is  difficult  to  ob- 
tain exact  facts  are  the  small  weekly  newspapers  and 
a  large  number  of  unimportant  and  trivial  trade 
papers.  The  fact  that  statistics  can  not  be  obtained 
about  these  has  little  bearing  upon  advertising,  as 
neither  class  is  important  to  the  advertiser.  Such 
papers  start  with  very  little  capital,  and  some  of  them 
last  only  a  short  time,  when  the  name  and  good-will 
are  sold,  or  the  paper  is  absorbed  by  a  rival. 

All  the  important  publications,  whether  maga- 
zines, newspapers  or  class  papers,  have  established 
offices  and  their  rates  of  advertising  are  on  file  in 
every  important  agency.  Most  publications,  espe- 
cially newspapers  and  magazines,  maintain  offices 
in  all  large  cities,  with  representatives  who  are  able 
to  give  any  information  about  the  paper,  the  con- 
stituency it  represents  and  its  rates,  and  who  make 
contracts  for  advertising  with  agencies  or  advertisers 
direct.  Such  representatives  are  called  "  special 
agents." 

While  circulation  is  the  chief  thing  the  period- 
ical has  to  sell  to  the  advertiser,  it  is  not  the  only 
thing.  There  is  a  great  difference  in  the  character  of 
circulation  as  well  as  in  the  quantity.  All  strong  pub- 
lications have  a  distinct  personality  which  attracts  a 
certain  kind  of  readers.  The  readers  of  one  publica- 
tion are  more  valuable  to  one  advertiser  than  to 
another. 

The  Ladies'  Home  Journal  is  an  example  of  a 
high-class  woman's  publication.  Not  only  is  a  very 
strict  censorship  exercised  over  the  advertisements 


72  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

which  are  allowed  to  be  inserted,1  but  the  people  who 
read  it  are  of  the  better  and  more  discriminating 
class.  The  Ladies'  Home  Journal  has  a  circulation 
of  1,000,000  copies  a  month.  It  is  a  large,  four- 
column  sheet,  the  pages  being  eleven  by  sixteen 
inches  in  size.  The  number  of  pages  varies  but  it 
averages  about  fifty-two.  The  price  of  space  is  $6 
an  agate  line.  An  agate  line  is  one-fourteenth  of  an 
inch,  and  the  space  is  measured  by  the  width  of  the 
column,  not  by  the  width  of  the  page.  A  single  page 
used  one  time  would  cost  $4,000.  In  other  words, 
the  estimate  of  the  publishers  of  the  Ladies'  Home 

1  The  "money-back"  policy  is  now  maintained  by  a  dozen  or 
more  widely  circulated  publications,  and  the  number  is  growing. 
If  a  reader  suffers  loss  through  an  advertisement  in  one  of  them 
the  publisher  makes  it  good,  and  so  announces  in  his  editorial 
heading.  Some  publishers  impose  conditions,  such  as  that  of 
requiring  that  the  complaint  shall  be  made  within  a  month  after 
the  appearance  of  the  advertisement,  that  the  reader  shall  have 
mentioned  the  publication  in  writing  to  the  advertiser,  and  so 
forth.  Probably  these  conditions  are  not  interpreted  in  strict 
accord  with  the  letter  in  actual  complaints,  however,  for  the 
number  of  claims  received  by  such  publications  is  smaller  than 
one  would  think.  At  the  office  of  the  Ladies'  Home  Journal  and 
Saturday  Evening  Post,  with  their  combined  circulation  per 
month  of  fully  3,500,000  copies,  the  claims  paid  do  not  average 
more  than  two  per  month.  The  following  letter  shows  that  a 
liberal  interpretation  of  the  "money  back"  policy  is  made  when 
the  claim  is  valid.  The  complainant  was  a  man  who  had  ordered 
goods  to  the  value  of  $25  from  an  advertisement  in  a  copy  of  the 
Saturday  Evening  Post  eight  months  after  publication.  The 
advertisement  had  ceased  to  appear  in  the  paper,  and  some  two 
or  three  days  after  the  complainant's  check  was  received  by  the 
advertiser  he  made  an  assignment.  The  check  had  been  cashed, 
and  the  money  was  hopelessly  entangled  in  the  bankrupt  busi- 
ness. Complaint  was  made  to  E.  W.  Spaulding,  advertising 
manager  of  the  two  publications,  and  after  investigation  he  sent 
a  check  for  the  full  amount. — Printers'  Ink. 


MAGAZINES  AND  NEWSPAPERS  73 

Journal  of  the  value  of  communicating  with  its 
1,000,000  readers  is  $6  for  what  may  be  contained 
in  a  single  line,  or  $4,000  for  what  may  be  put  on 
a  single  page. 

In  Augusta,  Me.,  there  is  a  monthly  publication 
called  Comfort.  It  is  printed  on  cheap  paper,  similar 
to  that  of  newspapers,  illustrated  with  newspaper  illus- 
trations, and  is  cleverly  adapted  to  the  intelligence 
and  taste  of  the  poorer  sort  of  people  in  small  towns 
and  villages.  It  is  not  at  all  attractive  in  appearance, 
printing,  illustrations  or  make-up.  Nevertheless,  it 
charges  $5  for  an  agate  line  of  space.  It  is  said  to 
have  a  circulation  of  1,200,000.  Very  few  people 
who  read  this  book  will  be  familiar  with  the  name 
Comfort.  Its  enormous  circulation,  if  genuine,  is  dis- 
tributed through  the  poorer  parts  of  the  country,  es- 
pecially in  the  West  and  South.  It  does  not  circulate 
in  cities.  The  space  is  supposed  to  be  worth  this  price 
to  the  people  who  have  anything  to  sell  to  such  pur- 
chasers. The  columns  are  filled  with  advertisements 
of  mail-order  houses,  cheap  goods,  jewelry,  agents' 
supplies  and  various  schemes.  Its  readers  buy  only 
the  most  inexpensive  things,  but  large  numbers  of 
them  do  buy,  so  that  the  space  is  worth  what  it  costs 
the  advertisers. 

These  two  papers  represent  two  extreme  types 
and  their  respective  constituencies;  the  one,  the  high- 
est type  of  an  advertising  medium,  well  edited,  well 
printed,  with  great  influence,  a  circulation  reaching 
well-educated,  well-to-do,  intelligent  American  wom- 
en; the  other,  poorly  printed,  placing  no  strictures 
upon  the  character  of  its  advertising  and  reaching 
an  uneducated  and  credulous  class. 


74  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

The  woman's  publications  include  the  Delineator, 
an  especially  interesting  periodical,  and  others,  such 
as  the  Woman's  Home  Companion  and  the  Ladies' 
World,  which  are  more  or  less  modeled  upon  the  lines 
of  The  Ladies'  Home  Journal.  The  Delineator,  how- 
ever, is  in  a  class  by  itself  and  is  just  as  unique  as  the 
Journal.  These  two  papers  are  pioneers  of  two  dif- 
ferent types  and  each  is  probably  the  best  advertising 
medium  of  its  kind. 

The  Journal  has  been  built  up  by  Cyrus  P.  Cur- 
tis, of  the  Curtis  Publishing  Company,  a  man  who 
struggled  for  years  to  obtain  success  in  the  publishing 
line.  He  began  in  a  very  small  way  by  the  founding 
of  the  Journal,  the  price  of  which  was  then  twenty- 
five  cents.  It  was  a  cheap  publication  in  every  way, 
badly  edited  and  illustrated,  with  a  small  circulation 
and  little  influence.  It  has  always  been  sold  for  the 
full  subscription  price  without  the  aid  of  premiums  or 
any  method  of  creating  circulation  except  adver- 
tising. Its  circulation  is  about  evenly  divided  be- 
tween the  news-stands  and  regular  subscribers. 

The  Delineator  is  a  very  old  magazine,  and  has 
been  built  up  from  what  was  practically  an  adver- 
tisement of  paper  patterns.  The  Butterick  Publish- 
ing Company,  the  inventors  and  creators  of  the  mod- 
ern paper-pattern  business,  started  the  Delineator  as  a 
sort  of  fashion  sheet  to  aid  the  sale  of  patterns.  Re- 
tail stores,  which  also  carried  the  Butterick  patterns, 
distributed  the  Delineator  free  at  first.  In  this  way 
it  soon  obtained  a  large  but  very  cheap  sort  of  circu- 
lation. Recently,  by  the  adoption  of  modern  publish- 
ing methods  and  a  very  thorough  campaign  of  adver- 
tising, the  circulation  of  the  Delineator  has  been  al- 


MAGAZINES  AND  NEWSPAPERS  75 

most  doubled.  It  has  been  put  into  a  very  high  class, 
ranking,  in  the  character  of  its  readers,  with  the 
Ladies'  Home  Journal,  but  with  probably  greater 
results  from  the  advertising  put  into  its  columns. 

The  Delineator  is  now  published  in  connection 
with  the  Designer  and  The  New  Idea,  the  three  pub- 
lications being  known  as  The  Butterick  Trio,  and  all 
being  controlled  by  the  same  company,  and  this  com- 
pany  controls  the  entire  pattern  business  of  the 
United  States.  Each  of  these  papers  was  the  organ 
of  a  pattern  company,  the  Designer  representing  the 
Standard  Patterns,  and  The  New  Idea  the  New  Idea 
Patterns,  the  Delineator,  of  course,  standing  for  the 
Butterick  Patterns.  These  three  publications  have  a 
united  circulation  of  1,250,000,  and  the  aggregate 
cost  per  agate  line  in  the  three  is  $7. 

A  large  portion  of  the  circulation  of  these  papers 
is  still  through  the  retail  stores  which  are  the  agents 
of  the  patterns.  As  no  store  has  an  agency  for  more 
than  one  line  of  patterns,  a  list  of  14,000  different 
stores  is  represented.  This  has  advertising  value. 
Nearly  all  the  goods  advertised  in  these  three  maga- 
zines are  sold  in  the  stores  which  distribute  them. 
The  importance  of  this  will  be  explained  more  fully 
in  another  chapter. 

The  size  of  page  used  by  The  Ladies'  Home  Jour- 
nal, 9^  X  14J,  is  a  size  that  has  become  standard  for 
women's  publications.  Several  weeklies,  such  as  the 
Youth's  Companion,  have  the  same  size  page.  The 
Delineator  has  a  page  size  of  its  own,  three  columns 
to  the  page,  and  smaller  than  that  of  The  Ladies' 
Home  Journal,  being  only  6J  X  9J  inches. 

The  magazines,  in  distinction  from  the  woman's 


76 


MODERN  ADVERTISING 


papers,  have  the  regular  magazine-sized  page,  the 
type  page  of  which  is  5J  X  8  inches.  A  very  large 
number  of  the  monthly  publications  are  made  of  this 
size,  which  accordingly  is  called  the  "  magazine  size." 
Space  in  such  publications  is  occasionally  sold  by  the 
agate  line,  but  usually  by  pages  or  fractions  of  a  page. 
The  Ladies'  Home  Journal,  the  Delineator  and  other 
publications  of  the  same  class  have  a  rate  for  a  page 
and  a  rate  for  a  quarter  of  a  page,  but  smaller  space 
is  sold  by  the  agate  line. 

The  price  of  space  in  all  publications  is  deter- 
mined by  the  quantity  of  the  circulation,  modified 
somewhat  by  its  character.  A  high-grade  magazine, 
for  instance,  will  ask  a  little  more  for  its  circulation 
than  a  cheaper  one,  as  a  rule.  To  give  some  idea 
of  the  relation  between  the  character  of  a  magazine, 
its  circulation  and  the  price  of  a  page,  the  following 
table  is  given: 


RATE  PER 
PAGE 

CIRCULATION 

Ladies'  Home  Journal 

$4,000 

1,000,000 

Delineator  

1,700 

960,000 

Century  

250 

250,000  » 

Harper's 

250 

200  000  l 

Scnbner's 

250 

200  000  » 

McClure's.   .  .                

384 

364,629 

Munsey  

500 

603,350 

1  These  circulations  are  the  ones  usually  credited  to  these 
publications  by  advertisers.  The  American  Newspaper  Direc- 
tory, however,  for  several  years  has  given  them  the  rating  "A," 
which  is  the  highest  given  by  the  Directory  when  the  circulation 
has  not  been  actually  supported  by  a  statement.  "A"  stands 
for  "exceeding  75,000." 


MAGAZINES  AND  NEWSPAPERS  77 

The  above  table  gives  the  exact  average  circula- 
tion of  the  publications  named  for  the  year  1902, 
except  in  the  case  of  the  Century,  Harper's  and  Scrib- 
ner's,  which  have  always  been  reticent  on  the  subject, 
believing  that  the  value  of  their  circulation  to  an 
advertiser  is  not  to  be  measured  altogether  by  vol- 
ume but  by  quality  also.  For  this  reason  and  be- 
cause they  are  high-priced  magazines  these  publica- 
tions have  always  been  ckssed  by  themselves  in  con- 
trast with  what  are  known  as  the  "  10-centers,"  such 
as  McClure's,  Frank  Leslie's,  the  Cosmopolitan,  Mun- 
sey's  and  a  number  of  smaller  magazines. 

The  important  part  played  by  the  so-called  "  10- 
cent  "  magazines  in  the  development  of  advertising, 
renders  a  comment  upon  their  advent  and  growth 
interesting.  The  following  is  from  the  Twelfth 
Census : 

"  In  the  field  of  monthly  magazines  the  most 
notable  change  which  occurred  during  the  decade  was 
the  creation  of  the  10-cent  magazine.  The  leading 
publications  in  this  class  were  Munsey's  Magazine, 
established  as  a  25-cent  publication  in  October,  1891, 
and  reduced  to  10  cents  in  October,  1893;  and  Mc- 
Clure's Magazine,  established  as  a  15-cent  magazine 
in  June,  1893,  and  reduced  to  10  cents  in  July,  1895. 
The  Cosmopolitan,  which  had  long  existed  as  a  25- 
cent  publication,  varied  its  price  to  12J  cents  and 
15  cents,  reducing  to  10  cents  in  1895. 

"  The  immediate  effect  of  the  reduction  in  price 
of  Munsey's  Magazine  to  10  cents  was  to  increase  the 
circulation  to  such  an  extent  that  it  was  difficult  to 
supply  the  orders,  and  the  production  of  the  first  edi- 
tion at  the  reduced  rate  was  stopped  in  order  to  begin 


78  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

work  upon  the  next  issue.  In  the  case  of  McClure's 
Magazine,  reduction  to  10  cents  caused  the  circula- 
tion to  double,  and  before  the  end  of  the  first  year  it 
had  reached  about  150,000. 

<(  When  the  reduction  of  price  to  10  cents  was 
made,  it  was  generally  regarded  as  a  foolhardy  pro- 
ceeding. The  opposition  of  the  news  companies  made 
it  necessary  to  handle  independently  the  distribution 
of  Munsey's  Magazine.  It  was  not  realized  by  many 
well-informed  publishers  that  the  time  was  ripe  for 
such  a  change.  Improvements  in  mechanical  produc- 
tion had  progressed  so  far  that  it  was  at  length  pos- 
sible for  a  daring  manager  to  produce  an  excellent 
magazine  at  a  trifling  cost  per  copy.  Moreover,  the 
public,  accustomed  to  cuts  in  prices  in  other  direc- 
tions, were  in  a  frame  of  mind  to  welcome  such  a 
change.  It  should  be  remarked  that  advances  in 
machine  composition  and  in  making  illustrations, 
while  of  much  importance,  represented  but  a  part  of 
the  initial  cost,  and  were,  moreover,  a  fixed  figure, 
regardless  of  the  size  of  the  edition.  These  items, 
therefore,  were  not  of  much  consequence  in  produ- 
cing a  great  number  of  copies.  The  principal  factors 
were  the  improvements  in  presses  and  in  machines  for 
stitching  and  covering,  which  greatly  reduced  the 
cost  per  copy. 

"  Publications  of  this  class  may  be  regarded  as  a 
variation  of  the  old-established  and  more  expensive 
magazine.  They  at  once  supplied  an  evident  want 
and  have  attained  to  an  enormous  aggregate  circula- 
tion. Possessing  different  characteristics,  they  reached 
a  different  class  of  readers,  circulating  not  only  in  the 
United  States,  but  in  Canada  as  well. 


MAGAZINES  AND  NEWSPAPERS  79 

"  Munsey's  Magazine  is  noted  for  the  large  num- 
ber of  illustrations  employed,  and  for  the  use  of  ma- 
terial that  deals  with  people  and  timely  topics,  avoid- 
ing descriptions.  This  magazine  averages  160  pages 
of  reading  matter  and  80  pages  of  advertising,  or  a 
total  of  about  240  pages  and  cover. 

"  The  leading  characteristic  of  McClure's  Maga- 
zine, in  addition  to  articles  by  well-known  writers,  is 
the  presentation  of  subjects  of  current  interest,  com- 
pletely worked  out  in  all  their  details  as  soon  as  the 
topic  has  actually  been  completed.  In  character  of 
material  used,  the  Cosmopolitan  follows  a  little  more 
closely  the  policy  of  the  older  magazines.  In  all 
magazines  of  this  class,  except  the  Argosy,  illustra- 
tions are  freely  used.  There  is  unquestionably  an 
evolution  of  daily  newspapers,  through  their  Sunday 
publications,  toward  the  field  occupied  by  the  inex- 
pensive magazine,  which,  before  the  completion  of 
another  decade,  may  have  some  decisive  result. 
Meantime  the  importance  of  the  inexpensive  maga- 
zine, and  its  educating  force  in  the  community,  must 
be  given  due  weight.  The  combined  circulation  of 
the  monthlies  published  by  F.  A.  Munsey,  the 
Ladies'  Home  Journal,  McClure's  Magazine  and  the 
Cosmopolitan,  in  1900,  was  2,483,000  copies  per 
issue." 

Not  only  do  readers  differ  as  to  standards  in  social 
and  financial  matters,  and  in  tastes  and  education, 
but  in  responsiveness  to  advertising.  The  Youth's 
Companion  is  a  paper  whose  circulation  has  been  built 
up  largely  for  nearly  three-quarters  of  a  century  by 
offers  of  premiums  for  new  subscribers.  Subscribers 
have  been  attracted  to  it  by  the  premiums  offered  as 
7 


80  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

much,  perhaps,  as  by  the  publication  itself.  There- 
fore, they  are  susceptible  to  the  offers  of  advertisers. 
The  large  circulation  of  the  Youth's  Companion 
brings  very  good  returns,  especially  for  articles  adver- 
tised as  sent  by  mail. 

Some  publications,  and  notably  The  Ladies'  Home 
Journal  and  the  Delineator,  follow  the  policy  of  an 
absolutely  accurate  statement  of  their  circulations 
from  month  to  month.  Magazines  may  be  divided 
into  two  large  classes — those  that  do  and  those  that 
do  not  make  known  their  actual  circulations.  The 
advertiser  feels  that  he  is  entitled  to  know  the  exact 
circulation  of  a  publication  in  which  he  buys  space. 
Circulation  is  what  the  publisher  sells  and  what  the 
advertiser  buys,  either  directly  or  through  his  agent. 
It  is,  therefore,  the  most  important  fact  from  an  ad- 
vertising point  of  view.  Circulation  has  been  va- 
riously defined  as  the  number  of  copies  printed,  the 
number  distributed,  or  the  number  read. 

Each  magazine  sends  out  a  number  of  free  copies 
to  agencies  for  their  files,  to  news-stands  with  the 
return  privilege,  and  to  advertisers.1  The  net  circula- 
tion is,  therefore,  jgenerally  conceded  to  be  the  circu- 
lation after  all  "  returns/'  free  copies,  sample  copies 
and  file  copies  have  been  deducted.  It  is  generally 
true  that  more  than  one  person  sees  each  copy  of  a 
magazine.  In  the  case  of  a  publication  entering  a 
home,  it  is  estimated  that  five  persons  read  each  copy. 

1  Several  magazines,  for  instance  Munsey's,  Harper's,  and 
Ladies'  Home  Journal,  send  advertisers  advance  copies  contain- 
ing advertising  only.  In  the  case  of  the  Ladies'  Home  Journal 
this  advance  copy,  issued  twenty  days  in  advance  of  publication, 
has  a  circulation  of  20,000  copies. 


MAGAZINES  AND  NEWSPAPERS  81 

The  number  of  readers  is  therefore  the  net  circulation 
multiplied  by  five.  No  agreement  however  upon 
these  matters  has  ever  been  reached. 

The  value  of  space  in  connection  with  circulation 
can  be  pretty  definitely  fixed.  Taking  the  leading 
magazines  of  the  country,  it  will  be  found  that  this 
value  runs  closely  to  the  same  ratio.  For  instance, 
at  $6  a  line  for  .the  Ladies'  Home  Journal,  on  a  basis 
of  1,000,000  of  circulation,  the  value  of  the  circula- 
tion is  about  five-eighths  of  a  cent  a  line  per  1,000 
of  circulation.  This  fraction  will  be  found  to  hold 
good  when  applied  to  most  standard  publications. 
By  some  such  method  as  this  an  advertiser  determines 
the  value  of  a  given  publication  to  him,  provided  the 
class  to  which  it  appeals  is  desirable  for  his  business. 

When  a  publication  appeals  only  to  a  certain  class 
not  reached  by  any  other  publication,  it  demands  and 
deserves  a  higher  rate  for  its  space.  For  instance, 
if  one  wishes  to  sell  a  breakfast  food,  any  publication 
that  appeals  to  people  who  wish  to  live  well  should 
be  good  provided  the  rate  is  right.  If,  however,  one 
wished  to  sell  a  scientific  instrument,  as,  for  example, 
a  stethoscope,  he  should  use  medical  publications, 
which, go  directly  to  doctors;  but  he  would  pay  more 
per  1,000  for  his  circulation  than  he  would  in  one 
reaching  the  general  public,  because  the  circulation  is 
select.  The  theory  of  the  value  of  advertising  space 
is  based  upon  these  considerations. 

The  second  division  into  which  periodicals  are 
arbitrarily  divided  by  advertising  men  embraces  the 
newspapers.  Newspapers  are  generally  spoken  of  as 
dailies,  either  metropolitan  or  country,  and  as  week- 
lies. The  division  between  the  metropolitan  daily 


82  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

and  the  country  daily  is  purely  an  arbitrary  one. 
Metropolitan  dailies  are  practically  the  papers  pub- 
lished in  about  twenty  cities  of  the  first  rank  in  the' 
United  States.  All  other  dailies  are  country  dailies. 

Most  weekly  newspapers  are  individually  very 
unimportant  publications,  but  in  numbers  they  ex- 
ceed all  other  publications  put  together.  There  are 
between  twelve  and  thirteen  thousand.  These  are 
the  newspapers  of  towns  too  small  to  support  a  daily, 
or  newspapers  representing  a  minority  political  party 
in  a  town  where  the  larger  political  parties  have  daily 
newspapers. 

The  existence  of  so  great  a  number  of  weekly 
newspapers  is  largely  due  to  the  fact  that  they  have 
received  more  assistance  from  the  Post-Office  Depart- 
ment than  any  other  form  of  periodical,  and  to  the 
advantages  furnished  them  by  the  "  ready-print " 
companies,  the  paper  being  bought  half  printed  very 
cheaply.  Weekly  newspapers  are  usually  the  home 
papers  of  a  country  or  farming  district,  and  are  good 
advertising  mediums  for  that  reason.  A  home  paper 
gives  local  influence  to  the  advertisements  which  it 
carries. 

Weekly  papers  may  be  considered  as  "  home 
prints  "  or  "  patent  insides."  In  the  very  smallest 
towns,  the  expense  of  printing  even  a  four-page  paper 
once  a  week  is  so  great  that  the  country  editor  buys 
his  paper  with  one  side  printed.  This  side  contains  a 
synopsis  of  the  news  of  the  world,  with,  perhaps, 
illustrated,  fashion  and  literary  matter.  The  other 
side  printed  on  the  home  press,  is  made  up  of  local 
news.  This  is  the  cheapest  form  of  newspaper  pub- 
lished. The  circulation  very  seldom  reaches  more 


MAGAZINES  AND  NEWSPAPERS  83 

than  a  thousand  and  usually  hovers  around  half  that 
number. 

The  business  of  supplying  "  ready-prints "  to 
country  newspapers  has  developed  into  several  large 
businesses.  These  organizations  are  known  by  the 
name  of  "  lists,"  as,  for  instance,  Kellogg's  Lists,  or 
the  Atlantic  Coast  Lists.  The  general  expression  is 
"  cooperative  newspapers."  There  are  six  concerns 
in  this  country  supplying  such  "  ready-prints  "  and 
three  in  Canada.  Those  in  the  United  States  are 
Kellogg's  Lists,  the  Chicago  Newspaper  Union,  the 
Atlantic  Coast  Lists,  the  Western  Newspaper  Union, 
the  Omaha  Newspaper  Union  and  the  Pacific  News- 
paper Union.  The  last  two  are  comparatively  small. 

These  concerns  supply  on  an  average  about  8,000 
newspapers  with  "  ready-prints,"  which  contain  a  lim- 
ited amount  of  advertising  of  a  general  nature,  and 
including  proprietary  remedies  or  other  articles  that 
appeal  to  an  agricultural  population.  This  adverti- 
sing is  not  expensive;  and  it  calls  for  no  outlay  for 
plates.  Only  one  plate  or  electrotype  need  be  made 
and  sent  to  the  home  office  of  the  list,  although  it  may 
appear  in  2,000  papers,  the  insides  of  which  are  all 
printed  at  the  same  time.  This  business  is  entirely 
distinct  from  the  "  plate  "  business,  by  which  col- 
umns of  matter  in  stereotyped  form,  consisting  of 
news  features  and  miscellaneous  matter,  are  sent  to 
the  larger  papers.  The  last  Census  has  the  following 
statistics  of  the  cooperative  plan  of  printing  papers: 

"  There  has  been  little  development,  for  several 
decades,  of  the  '  patent  insides '  system  described  in 
the  special  report  of  the  Tenth  Census  on  the  News- 
paper and  Periodical  Press.  The  general  advance  in 


84 


MODERN  ADVERTISING 


printing  has  led  to  some  progress  in  methods,  and  the 
number  of  papers  served  has  increased  with  the 
growth  of  the  newspaper  industry  in  general,  but 
growth  in  this  line  has  been  relatively  slow.  The 
following  table  shows,  by  States  and  Territories  ar- 
ranged geographically,  the  number  of  newspapers 
printed  on  the  cooperative  plan: 

NEWSPAPERS  PRINTED  ON  THE  COOPERATIVE  PLAN, 
BY  STATES  AND  TERRITORIES,    1900 


STATES    OR 
TERRITORY. 


NO.  OF 
NEWSPAPERS. 


United  States 7,749 

North  Atlantic  Division  728 

New  England 177 

Maine 13 

New  Hampshire ...  30 

Vermont 10 

Massachusetts 90 

Rhode  Island 16 

Connecticut 18 

Southern    North   At- 
lantic   551 

New  York 196 

New  Jersey 79 

Pennsylvania 376 


South     Atlantic 
sion .  . 


Divi- 


Northern    South   At- 
lantic  

Delaware 

Maryland 

District  of  Colum- 
bia  

Virginia 

West  Virginia 


511 


185 

4 
49 

6 

62 
64 


STATES   OR 
TERRITORY. 


NO.  OF 

NEWSPAPERS. 


Southern    South    At- 
lantic   

North  Carolina .... 
South  Carolina .... 

Georgia 

Florida. . . 


North  Central  Division . 

Eastern  North    Cen- 
tral . . 


Ohio 

Indiana. . . 
Illinois . .  . 
Michigan . 
Wisconsin. 


Western   North  Cen- 
tral . . 


Minnesota 

Iowa 

Missouri 

North  Dakota 

South  Dakota.... 

Nebraska 

Kansas. . . 


326 

81 

51 

135 

59 


4,725 


2,110 

337 
358 
703 
365 
347 


2,615 

409 
619 
376 
122 
224 
462 
403 


MAGAZINES  AND  NEWSPAPERS 


85 


STATES  OR                            NO. 
TERRITORY.                     NEWSP 

South  Central  Division  . 

Eastern    South    Cen- 
tral 

OF 

APERS. 

1,179 

476 

59 
114 
134 
169 

703 

94 
143 
62 
153 

251 

STATES  OR                              NO 
TERRITORY.                    NEWSP 

Western  Division  

Rocky  Mountain  

Montana  
Idaho 

OP 
APERS. 

606 

285 
32 
40 
20 
177 
16 

43 

4 
35 

4 

278 

95 
65 

118 

Kentucky  

Tennessee  
Alabama  

Colorado  

Mississippi     

Basin  and  Plateau  .  .  . 
Arizona  

Western   South   Cen- 
tral 

Utah  

Louisiana  

Nevada 

Pacific  

Arkansas  
Indian  Territory  .  .  . 
Oklahoma  
Texas  .  . 

Washington  

Oregon 

California.  .  . 

"  It  will  be  seen  from  this  statement  that  over 
60  per  cent  of  the  papers  printed  on  the  cooperative 
plan  are  found  in  the  North  Central  Division.  The 
number  in  Illinois  alone  (the  highest  number  for  any 
single  State)  nearly  equals  the  number  shown  for  the 
entire  North  Atlantic  Division,  and  Iowa  (next  in 
rank)  surpasses  both  the  Western  and  South  Atlantic 
Divisions. 

"  Many  of  the  newspapers  of  this  class  are  the 
only  ones  in  their  respective  towns — this  being  the 
case  with  60  per  cent  of  those  sent  out  by  one  con- 
cern. At  the  present  time  most  of  the  newspapers 
printed  in  this  way  are  weeklies,  and  these  form  about 
half  of  the  total  number  of  weeklies  in  the  United 
States.  Many  semiweeklies  and  triweeklies,  also, 
are  issued  in  this  way,  and  some  dailies  adopt  the 
method.  These  dailies  are  printed  at  a  distributing 
center,  sent  out  by  express  in  the  morning,  and  fin- 


86  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

ished  at  the  local  office  in  the  afternoon." — Twelfth 
Census  of  the  United  States,  1900,  Volume  IX, 
pages  1104-1105. 

Trade  papers  are  publications  issued  in  the  inter- 
ests of  some  trade,  profession  or  industry.  They  are 
almost  altogether  of  a  technical  character,  though 
many  of  them  devote  considerable  space  to  the  news 
of  the  trade  they  represent.  The  more  important 
trade  papers  are  authoritative  in  their  respective  lines. 
The  editors  are  men  of  practical  training  and  experi- 
ence in  the  industry  represented,  and  their  writings 
represent  the  best  thought  and  experience. 

In  this  class  are  such  standard  papers  as  the  Dry- 
Goods  Economist,  Iron  Age,  Engineering  Magazine, 
Street-Kailway  Journal  and  many  others.  Such  pub- 
lications have  a  large  circulation  as  compared  with 
the  relatively  limited  number  of  people  to  whom 
they  appeal.  They  represent  in  many  cases  valuable 
properties  built  up  by  careful  and  intelligent  editorial 
work.  The  Dry-Goods  Economist,  for  instance,  has 
experts  on  its  staff  representing  all  the  main  divisions 
of  the  dry-goods  trade.  It  has  representatives  in  the 
leading  fashion  and  manufacturing  centers  of  the 
world.  It  has  an  intelligent  correspondent  in  Paris, 
where  fashions  are  created,  and  a  technical  writer  in 
St.  Gall,  Switzerland,  where  many  foreign  laces  and 
embroideries  are  made  or  sold. 

A  trade  paper  is  frequently,  but  not  always,  pub- 
lished in  the  center  of  the  districts  of  the  trade  it  rep- 
resents. For  instance,  a  glove  trade  paper  is  pub- 
lished at  Gloversville,  N.  Y.  Textile  trade  papers 
are  found  among  the  looms  and  mills  of  New  Eng- 
land. Shoe  trade  papers  flourish  in  and  around  Bos- 


MAGAZINES  AND  NEWSPAPERS  87 

ton,  the  center  of  the  shoe  trade.  Carpet  trade  papers 
are  published  in  Philadelphia.  The  Dry-Goods  Econ- 
omist has  its  offices  located  in  the  center  of  the  whole- 
sale dry-goods  district  of  New  York.  In  this  way, 
trade  papers  of  the  better  sort  reflect  varying  trade 
conditions  constantly  and  accurately.  They  are  in 
close  touch  with  the  men  who  are  most  important  in 
their  businesses. 

Trade  papers  or  class  papers  may  be  divided 
roughly  into  papers  devoted  to  trades,  such,  for  in- 
stance, as  the  Baker's  Helper,  a  journal  of  the  baking 
trade,  or  the  Metal  Worker,  a  journal  for  tin-roofers; 
papers  devoted  to  professions,  as  The  Green  Bag  for 
lawyers,  The  Dental  Cosmos  for  dentists,  or  Archi- 
tecture and  Building  for  architects;  papers  devoted 
to  industries,  as  the  Northwestern  Miller,  a  leading 
organ  of  the  flour-milling  industry,  or  Power,  a  jour- 
nal of  applied  steam  and  other  power;  papers  for  va- 
rious retail  trades,  as  the  American  Stationer,  or  the 
Clothier  and  Furnisher,  whose  names  are  self-explan- 
atory; papers  devoted  to  societies,  secret  and  other- 
wise, such  as  the  Masonic  Home  Journal;  and  edu- 
cational papers,  such  as  the  Normal  Instructor. 

To  these  class  papers  might  also  be  added  the 
agricultural  and  religious  papers,  each  of  which 
forms  a  long  list  by  itself.  Every  religious  sect  has 
publications  devoted  to  its  interests,  some  of  which 
are  important  and  have  large  circulations.  The  agri- 
cultural papers  also  have  large  circulations  and  reach 
constituencies  important  to  the  advertiser. 


CHAPTEK    V 

MURAL    ADVERTISING 

X  ADVERTISING,  in  the  modern  sense,  relates  almost 
altogether  to  magazines  and  newspapers.  Street-cars 
and  posters  are  or  should  be  subsidiary.  Most  large 
advertisers,  however,  use  all  the  mediums  in  the  pro- 
portion which  their  judgment  or  experience  decides 
is  the  best.  But  there  are  noteworthy  instances  in 
which  advertisers  have  built  up  a  large  business  by 
using  street-cars  and  posters  alone,  utterly  ignoring 
the  magazines  and  newspapers.  The  H.  J.  Heinz 
Company,  whose  phrase,  "  One  of  the  57,"  is  well 
known,  have  used  street-car  cards  and  posters  only, 
supplemented  by  immense  illuminated  signs.  The 
Heinz  Pier  at  Atlantic  City  is  one  of  the  features  of 
that  resort  and  for  the  last  few  years  has  been  famous 
for  its  flashing  electric  signs  and  its  permanent  display 
of  goods. 

^  Magazines  and  newspapers  can  never  cease  to  be 
the  most  important  advertising  mediums,  but  a  sec- 
ond large  division  is  formed  by  what  may  be  called, 
for  want  of  a  better  name,  "  mural  "  or  "  outdoor  " 
advertising.  Mural  advertising  is  roughly  subdivided 

*  into  the  two  general  divisions  of  street-car  adverti- 
sing and  poster  work.  The  latter  is  understood  to 
cover  not  only  posters  proper  but  permanent  painted 
signs  having  the  appearance  and  effect  of  posters.  Of 


MURAL  ADVERTISING  89 

these  two  general  divisions,  the  street-car  advertising 
is  the  better  systematized  and  classified,  although 
each  department  of  mural  advertising  has  been 
worked  up,  organized  and  centralized  more  or  less. 
The  large  cities  are  in  a  better  condition  than  the 
small  towns,  and  the  East  is  better  managed  than  the 
West. 

Both  street-car  work  and  bill-posting  are  in  the 
hands  of  a  few  companies  which  have  franchises  and 
options,  as  well  as  leased  sites,  which  make  them 
brokers  in  a  large  way  in  space  either  in  the  street- 
cars or  upon  hoardings.  Statistics  for  street-car  work 
are  more  definite  and  more  available  than  those  for 
poster  work. 

Thoroughly  to  cover  the  entire  United  States 
with  street-car  advertising  would  require,  according 
to  the  estimate  of  one  house,  45,000  cards,  with  750 
additional  for  Canada.  This  is  supposed  to  represent 
one  card  in  every  full-time  car.  It  of  course  does  not 
represent  one  card  in  every  car  of  all  kinds.  All  sur- 
face lines  have  both  summer  and  winter  cars.  They 
also  have  many  shuttle  cars,  or  cars  that  make  short 
runs,  so  that  this  number  does  not  represent,  proba- 
bly, one-half  of  the  street-cars  in  use  in  the  country. 
According  to  the  statistics  of  the  Street-Kailway 
Journal,  the  exact  number  of  cars  is  71,312.  The 
figures  represent,  of  course,  all  cars  which  carry  ad- 
vertising, such  as  elevated  and  subway  roads  in  the 
various  cities  and  steam-lines  which  reach  seaside  and 
other  resorts.  For  very  thorough  advertising,  two 
cards  or  one  double-sized  card  may  be  put  in  a  single 
car.  It  is  generally  understood  that  30,000  cards 
represent  a  very  complete  street-car  campaign.  The 


90 


MODERN  ADVERTISING 


service  changes  cards  as  often  as  desired,  changes 
usually  being  made  once  a  week  or  once  a  month. 
Extra  cards  are  always  sent  to  each  distributing  cen- 
ter, so  that  if  any  card  should  become  damaged  it 
could  be  promptly  replaced. 

It  takes  about  45,000  single  cards,  11  X  21 
inches,  to  cover  the  country  thoroughly.  The  cost 
of  this  service  is  from  twelve  to  fifteen  thousand  dol- 
lars per  month.  Probably  the  lowest  price  on  national 
service  ever  given  to  any  one  was  about  twenty-five 
cents  per  card  per  car  per  month  on  an  average.  The 
regular  price,  however,  in  a  rough  estimate,  is  from 
forty  to  fifty  cents,  according  to  whether  the  contract 
is  for  three  months  or  a  year.  Here  is  a  list  showing 
the  number  of  cards  required  in  each  State  based  upon 
the  above  allowance  of  30,000  cards  for  the  United 
States: 


Alabama 124 

Arkansas 46 

California 1,106 

Colorado 280 

Connecticut 534 

Delaware 37 

District  of  Columbia 486 

Florida 52 

Georgia 226 

Idaho 2 

Illinois 3,256 

Indiana 338 

Iowa 259 

Kansas 70 

Kentucky 463 

Louisiana 364 

Maine 187 

Maryland 641 

Massachusetts 3,087 

Michigan 518 

Minnesota 411 

Mississippi 6 

Missouri 1,401 


Montana 21 

Nebraska 150 

New  Hampshire 135 

New  Jersey 827 

New  Mexico 3 

New  York 6,698 

North  Carolina 65 

Ohio 1,859 

Oregon 72 

Pennsylvania 2,626 

Rhode  Island 408 

South  Carolina 165 

Tennessee 241 

Texas 279 

Utah 55 

Vermont 45 

Virginia 167 

Washington 101 

West  Virginia 47 

Wisconsin 312 


Total 28,170 


MURAL  ADVERTISING  91 

Street-car  business  has  never  been  consolidated  in 
the  hands  of  any  one  general  agent  and  probably 
never  will  be.  Nor  are  there  any  number  of  general 
agents  who  can  place  street-car  advertising  over  the 
entire  country.  The  whole  of  New  England  is  under 
contract  to  one  concern.  All  the  surface  cars  in 
New  York  are  controlled  by  one  house,  except 
200  cars  on  the  East  Side  (which  are  owned  by  the 
company  which  controls  all  the  approaches  to  the 
ferry  lines),  and  the  Fifth  Avenue  Stage  line.  The 
elevated  roads  in  New  York  and  Brooklyn  are  con- 
trolled by  one  firm,  which  has  not  only  the  car  service, 
but  the  station  posters,  while  the  entire  surface  system 
in  Brooklyn  is  managed  by  another  firm.  The  Mid- 
dle States,  Illinois,  Indiana,  Iowa,  Michigan  and 
Wisconsin,  are  controlled  by  a  Detroit  house.  One 
man  owns  all  the  South,  east  of  the  Mississippi.  The 
far  West  is  distributed,  while  the  Pacific  slope  is  man- 
aged by  a  firm  in  San  Francisco.  The  best  terms  can 
be  made  directly  with  these  firms  instead  of  trying  to 
cover  the  country  through  any  one  house.  Chicago  is 
divided  among  a  number  of  concerns,  each  of  which 
should  be  dealt  with  separately. 

Some  idea  of  the  number  of  cards  required  in 
proportion  to  the  number  of  cars  the  road  actually 
operates  may  be  determined  from  the  following: 
Seven  hundred  and  fifty  cards  are  usually  called  for 
to  be  used  upon  the  Broadway  cars  in  New  York 
city,  alone,  although  this  one  road  operates  1,800 
cars.  Seven  hundred  and  fifty  cards  will  put  one  in 
every  full-time  car  the  year  around. 

A  standard  street-car  card  is  21  X  11  inches  in 
size.  But  many  advertisers  use  cards  of  twice  this 


92 


MODERN  ADVERTISING 


length.  Some  roads,  nota- 
bly on  the  elevated  trains 
now  running  in  New 
York,  call  for  a  differ- 
ently proportioned  card, 
which  is  15  inches  deep 
instead  of  11  inches,  and 
affords  better  display. 
There  is  a  line  of  sub- 
urban cars  running  from 
Oakland  and  Berkeley 
Ferries  in  California, 
opposite  San  Francisco, 
which  carries  street-car 
cards  four  by  three  feet 
in  size. 

Street-car  advertising 
can  never  have  either  the 
definite  or  the  expansive 
qualities  of  advertising  in 
periodicals.  It  is  confined 
to  a  display  of  the  name 
of  the  article  advertised 
and  a  few  short  statements 
about  it.  That  is  why  it 
can  serve  best  as  supple- 
mental advertising.  It 
deepens  an  impression 
made  elsewhere.  In  the 
large  cities  street-car  ad- 
vertising carries  a  state- 
ment before  the  eyes  of  a 
greater  number  of  people, 
or  those  of  the  same  people 


MURAL  ADVERTISING 


93 


a  greater  number  of  times,  than  is  possible  to  any 
other  form  of  advertising. 

New  York  city,  for  instance,  by  which  is  meant 
the  entire  metropolitan  district  on  both  sides  of 
the  Hudson  and  East  Rivers,  has  a  population  of 
4,500,000.  The  surface  and  elevated  roads  in  this 
district  carry  every  year  1,350,000,000  people.  Only 
a  small  percentage  of  these  people,  who  average  at 
least  two  trips  a  day,  entirely  escape  the  advertising 


A    SINGLE    STREET-CAR    CARD  J      SIZE,    21  X  11     INCHES. 

which  appears  in  the  cars.  The  population  of  the 
metropolitan  district  of  Boston  and  suburbs  is 
1,162,000.  The  average  travel  in  Boston  is  700,000 
people  daily,  or  259,000,000  each  year.1 

1  Since  the  above  was  in  type  the  New  York  Subway  has  been 
completed  and  thrown  open  to  the  public.  Fourteen  competitors 
bid  for  the  advertising  privileges  in  the  cars  and  stations  of  the 
New  York  Subway.  The  contract  was  finally  awarded  to  Ward  & 
Gow,  New  York,  who  control  the  advertising  privilege  on  Man- 
hattan elevated  lines,  as  well  as  the  elevated  station  news  stands. 
The  price  for  the  Subway  advertising  privilege  is  understood  to  be 
in  the  neighborhood  of  $200,000  a  year.  Only  part  of  the  road  is 
thrown  open  this  year,  and  the  annual  rental  increases  each  year 
as  other  branches  are  opened.  A  five-year  contract  has  been  made, 
with  privilege  of  renewal,  and  the  average  annual  rate  according 


94  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

Street-car  advertising  acts  on  passengers  in  a  more 
or  less  compulsory  way.  It  can  not  be  escaped,  es- 
pecially where  one  is  a  constant  daily  rider.  There- 
fore, it  is  a  powerful  auxiliary  to  any  other  form  of 
advertising.  No  story  which  requires  details  in  tell- 
ing it  can,  however,  be  successfully  exploited  in 
street-cars.  Descriptive  space  can  be  obtained  only 
in  magazines  and  newspapers. 

Poster  work  and  permanent  painted  signs  are  each 
managed  largely  by  the  same  firms  who  act  as  bro- 
kers or  by  their  representatives  in  various  towns  and 
cities.  To  cover  the  whole  country  with  bill-boards 
is  largely  a  matter  of  approximation;  that  is,  no  one 
can  hope  to  cover  even  a  majority  of  the  existing 
stands.  Probably  the  largest  showing  ever  made  was 
that  by  the  Force  Food  Company,  which  used  30,- 
000  eight-sheet  stands  and  20,000  twenty-four-sheet 
stands,  at  a  cost  of  about  $25,000  per  month.  Bill- 
posting  is  in  the  hands  of  twelve  agents  who  are  recog- 
nized by  the  American  Bill-Posters'  Association, 
which  includes  all  the  bill-posters  in  the  United  States. 

to  its  terms  is  about  $200,000.  This  is  probably  the  largest  con- 
tract of  its  nature  in  the  world,  and  is  highly  interesting  when  it 
is  remembered  that  approximately  $1,000,000  will  be  given  for  the 
bare  advertising  option,  the  Subway  company  being  put  to  no  ex- 
pense for  installing  or  maintaining  the  advertising  plant.  The 
rental  ultimately  agreed  upon  is  said  to  be  $200,000  in  excess  of 
Ward  &  Gow's  original  bid.  Mr.  Belmont's  estimators  were  ex- 
perienced advertising  men,  and  had  calculated  that  the  Subway 
could  clear  $800,000  by  operating  its  own  advertising  service, 
allowing  for  soliciting,  empty  spaces,  and  all  expenses.  The  Sub- 
way, as  completed,  will  have  in  excess  of  2,000  cars.  Each  car 
carries  forty-two  cards  on  the  sides,  with  end  spaces  in  addition. 
The  Subway's  figures  were  based  on  a  charge  to  advertisers  of 
about  sixty  cents  per  card  per  car  per  month.  Different  rates 
are  charged  for  different  positions. 


96  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

There  are  no  independent  posters.  Four  advertising- 
agencies  are  recognized  by  bill-posters  also. 

The  average  price  for  posting  is  from  seven  to 
nine  cents  per  sheet  for  one  month's  showing,  a  bill- 
poster's month  being  four  weeks.  A  discount  of  5 
per  cent  is  made  for  three  months',  and  of  10  per  cent 
for  six  months'  showing.  Twenty-five  per  cent  of  the 
paper  is  allowed  for  renewal.  In  addition  to  these 
discounts,  which  any  advertiser  gets,  the  bill-poster's 
agent's  discount  is  16f  per  cent.  This  discount  is 
almost  invariably  divided  with  the  customer,  so  that 
the  cost  of  bill-posting  is  just  a  matter  of  how  much 
the  agent  is  willing  to  give  up. 

Posters  vary  in  size  from  a  three  sheet  up  to  a 
twenty-four  sheet,  and  in  some  special  cases  are  even 
larger.  One-sheet  posters  are  largely  used,  but  not 
so  much  for  general  posting  work  as  for  special  stands, 
such  as  those  found  upon  elevated  platforms  in  large 
cities.  A  one-sheet  poster  is  28  X42-  inches  in  size. 
Posters  of  eight  sheets  or  more  are  uniformly  9J 
feet  high.  An  eight-sheet  poster  is  7  feet  wide. 
Three  and  a  half  feet  are  added  for  each  additional 
four  sheets.  A  twelve-sheet  poster  measures  10 1 
feet;  a  twenty-four-sheet  one,  21  feet. 

As  a  rule,  the  advertising  agency  does  not  do  its 
own  bill-posting  but  makes  a  contract  with  some 
house  which  has  facilities  for  doing  the  work.  Four 
agencies,  however,  do  make  a  specialty  of  bill-posting 
and  deal  directly  with  the  bill-posters  in  various  towns 
and  cities.  The  stands  in  the  smaller  towns  are  usu- 
ally erected,  owned  and  controlled  by  the  local  the- 
aters or  by  a  local  bill-poster  who  works  for  the  the- 
aters. Commercial  advertising  is  usually  placed  alter- 


MURAL  ADVERTISING 


97 


nately  with  theatrical  advertising,  or  by  itself  during 
the  summer  months.  Naturally,  summer  is  the  best 
time  for  poster  advertising,  as  more  people  are  then 
out  of  doors.  Hoardings  have  been  called  "  the  poor 
man's  picture  gallery."  They  undoubtedly  play  a 


A  PAINTED  WALL  WITH  HEAD  OF  THE  MAN  BUILT  UP  AND 
CUT  OUT. 

Real  water  is  made  to  flow  from  the  siphon  into  the  glass. 

strong  part  in  advertising, — not  so  exact  or  far-reach- 
ing as  street-car  cards,  but  still  potent  and  effective. 
There  are  a  number  of  men  who  make  a  business 
of  painting  advertisements.  Some  of  these  are  bill- 
posters though  others  are  not.  Some  are  prepared  to 
give  service  in  all  parts  of  the  country,  and  some 


98  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

only  in  a  given  town  or  territory.  Painted  adver- 
tisements are  divided  between  regular  painted  signs 
set  up  all  over  the  country,  chance  painted  signs 
placed  upon  barns  and  sheds,  regular  stands  in  the 
city,  and  bulletins  which  are  temporary  stands,  ten 
feet  high,  erected  around  buildings  in  course  of  con- 
struction or  around  vacant  lots. 

The  average  price  for  wall  space  in  a  city  like 
New  York  is  from  four  to  five  cents  per  square  foot, 
plus  the  rentals.  This  includes  the  painting.  The 
exact  rental  of  the  wall  from  the  tenant  or  owner  of 
the  building,  plus  four  to  five  cents  per  square  foot, 
pays  for  the  sign  and  includes  the  painting  once 
a  year.  No  wall  space  is  ever  rented  for  less  than  a 
year.  It  is  generally  held  to  be  better  to  have  a  con- 
tract with  the  tenant  than  with  the  owner  for  wall 
space. 

Of  course,  in  many  cases  it  is  simply  a  gamble  as 
to  how  long  the  sign  will  remain  exposed.  A  wall 
rented  next  to  a  building  that  is  under  construction 
will  be  seen  for  only  a  month  or  so.  Another  may  be 
seen  for  several  years.  The  Force  Food  Company 
once  paid  $2,400  for  a  wall  which  remained  exposed 
only  two  months.  The  highest  price  ever  paid  for  a 
painted  sign  in  New  York  was  for  one  at  the  corner 
of  Thirty-fourth  Street  and  Broadway  in  the  little 
jog  made  in  Macy's  new  store.  For  this  sign  the  sum 
of  $10  per  square  foot  per  month  was  paid.  The 
price  of  a  large  chimney  down  near  Cortlandt  Street, 
New  York,  now  used  by  the  Force  Food  Company, 
is  $1,000  a  year,  plus  the  cost  of  painting.  Painting 
has  to  be  done  every  year  and  costs  $400. 

The  cost  of  bulletins,  such  as  those  erected  around 


•HI 


100  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

a  new  building  or  a  vacant  lot,  is  forty  to  fifty  cents 
per  running  foot  per  month,  which  includes  painting. 
All  bulletins  are  exactly  ten  feet  high.  Every  painter 
has  a  number  of  positions  which  he  calls  "  special," 
which  are  usually  sold  to  the  highest  bidder.  The 
illuminated  signs  on  either  side  of  Madison  Square 
are  special  positions.  The  one  upon  the  Bartholdi 
Hotel  brings  $5,000  a  year. 

Perhaps  the  most  important  medium  which  may 
be  used  by  an  advertiser  is  printed  matter,  which 
means  catalogues,  booklets,  "  mail  series,"  "  follow-up 
systems,"  "  house  organs,"  etc.  A  catalogue  is  a 
purely  technical  book  containing  illustrations  and  the 
prices  of  the  goods  manufactured.  The  term  is  a 
broad  one  and  the  dividing  line  between  booklet  and 
catalogue  can  not  be  drawn.  A  booklet  is  usually 
popular  in  style  and  non-technical,  often  a  talk  about 
the  good  points  of  the  articles  advertised,  while  a 
catalogue  is  a  trade  list,  giving  technical  descriptions 
and  serves  as  a  book  of  reference.  It  may  consist  of 
only  a  few  pages  and  list  only  a  few  articles,  or  it 
may  weigh  a  dozen  pounds  and  have  two  or  three 
thousand  pages. 

A  "  mail  series  "  is  a  series  of  printed  things  about 
any  given  article  or  line  of  goods,  sent  at  frequent 
intervals,  such  as  once  a  week  or  twice  a  month,  to 
a  dealer  who  may,  might,  could,  would  or  should 
handle  the  advertiser's  goods. 

"  Follow-up  matter  "  is  matter  sent  to  those  who 
have  written  in  answer  to  advertisements  but  who 
have  not  responded  after  receiving  the  first  reply,  the 
booklet,  the  sample,  or  whatever  may  have  been  sent 
them.  A  thorough  plan  always  provides  for  sending 


MURAL  ADVERTISING  -  101 

a  number  of  pieces  of  follow-up  matter  to  aiiy  promis- 
ing inquirer. 

A  "  house  organ  "  is  a  small  magazine  or  news- 
paper published  once  a  month,  sometimes  more  fre- 
quently, sometimes  less,  and  made  up  wholly  or  in 
part  of  advertising  from  the  house  sending  it  out. 
Such  an  organ  is  not  a  periodical,  and  is  not  admitted 
at  second-class  rates.  Postage  has  to  be  paid  just 
as  on  any  printed  advertising  matter.1  Some  house 
organs,  however,  are  very  well  edited  and  have  all 
the  features  of  a  regular  periodical. 

In  addition  to  all  the  important  mediums  just  de- 
scribed, many  advertisers  use  what  are  known  as 
advertising  novelties.  These  are  things  of  more  or 
less  use  or  intrinsic  value,  incidentally  carrying  an 
advertisement  of  the  man  who  gives  them  away.  The 
simplest  and  best  known  form  is  a  blotter,  and  articles 
manufactured  of  aluminum,  celluloid,  paper  and 
wood,  such  as  clocks,  thermometers,  penholders,  blot- 
ter-holders and  things  of  that  sort.  These  are  sent 
out  by  some  advertisers  as  a  permanent  business  an- 
nouncement. From  an  advertising  point  of  view  they 
are  relatively  unimportant,  although  there  are  large 
business  houses  which  do  nothing  but  manufacture 
such  articles.  In  this  same  class  may  be  mentioned 
the  advertising  signboards  which  are  seen  in  country 
hotels  and  railway-stations,  consisting  usually  of  a 
clock  or  thermometer,  with  advertisements  of  various 
houses  arranged  around  it.  These  things  are  more 
used  by  retailers  than  by  general  advertisers. 

1  A  movement  is  on  the  way  to  secure  a  special  postage  rate 
for  house  organs  between  the  present  rate  and  the  pound  rates 
enjoyed  by  legitimate  periodicals.  The  rate  asked  for  is  four 
cents  a  pound. 


CHAPTER   VI 

THE     GENERAL     ADVERTISER 

THE  general  advertiser  is  one  who  advertises  over 
the  entire  country  an  article  which  is  sold  in  retail 
stores.  The  retail  advertiser  is  but  a  cog  in  the  ma- 
chinery of  the  general  advertiser  for  the  exploitation 
and  distribution  of  his  goods.  A  retailer  sells  over 
his  counter  to  people  who  come  into  his  store  goods 
for  which  the  general  advertiser  has  created  a  demand 
in  all  parts  of  the  country  through  all  kinds  of  pub- 
licity. 

When  advertising  is  mentioned,  general  advertis- 
ing is  usually  meant.  It  is  general  advertising  that 
fills  the  pages  of  magazines  and  weeklies  and  a  large 
part  of  the  advertising  columns  of  newspapers. 

The  idea  of  the  general  advertiser  is  so  to  stamp 
the  name,  trade-mark  and  description  of  his  goods 
upon  the  mind  of  a  receptive  public  that  the  public 
will  insist  on  getting  these  particular  goods  in  the 
retail  stores.  Such  methods  having  created  a  large 
demand  for  the  goods,  the  advertiser  is  able  to  manu- 
facture the  goods  more  economically  and  thus,  while 
paying  for  the  advertising,  he  still  secures  a  large 
profit. 

The  general  advertiser's  product  must  be  some- 
thing which  can  be  named  and  trade-marked  so  that 
it  may  easily  be  identified  by  the  consumer.  It  must 

102 


THE  GENERAL  ADVERTISER  103 

be  distributed  through  the  regular  channels  of  trade 
— in  some  cases  through  the  jobber  to  the  retailer ;  in 
others  direct  to  the  retailer.  The  tendency  in  mod- 
ern advertising  is  either  to  eliminate  the  jobber  or  to 
make  him  merely  a  cog  in  the  distributing  machin- 
ery. Jobbers  are  convenient  for  handling  goods. 
They  keep  in  stock  at  convenient  points  throughout 
the  country  staple  goods  which  are  in  most  frequent 
demand.  The  manufacturer  in  the  East  has  his  goods 
in  stock  with  jobbers  in  Chicago,  Denver  and  San 
Francisco,  so  that  retailers  in  neighboring  towns  who 
wish  a  supply  of  the  goods  on  short  notice  need  not 
send  to  New  York. 

Before  the  days  of  advertising,  the  jobber  was  far 
more  important ;  he  had  all  the  authority  of  the  manu- 
facturer. 

Advertising  has  had  a  tendency  to  make  the  manu- 
facturer paramount  and  the  jobber  merely  a  distribu- 
ter of  trade-marked  goods  and  unidentified  bulk  goods. 

The  largest  general  advertisers  in  the  country  are 
the  packing-houses,  soap-makers,  breakfast-food  manu- 
facturers, cracker  bakers  and  baking-powder  compa- 
nies. This  is  not  because  these  goods  are  more  suscep- 
tible of  advertising,  but  because  one  manufacturer  in 
each  of  these  lines  has  been  a  pioneer  and  has  proved 
that  great  profits  can  be  derived  from  publicity. 
When  this  has  been  done  other  manufacturers  in  the 
same  line  have  begun  to  advertise,  driven  to  it  partly 
by  competition  and  partly  by  emulation,  and  have 
been  proportionately  successful.  Thus  one  finds  some 
lines  have  been  heavily  overadvertised,  while  others, 
equally  susceptible  of  development  by  advertising,  are 
not  advertised  at  all, 


104  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

The  greater  number  of  staple  articles  remain  yet 
to  be  advertised.  Indeed,  the  greatest  development  in 
advertising  in  the  future  will  occur  along  these  lines. 
By  staple  articles  are  meant  foodstuffs,  clothing, 
household  goods  and  toilet  articles.  We  have  already 
pointed  out  that  modern  advertising  began  with  pro- 
prietary remedies ;  next  followed  novelties  and  articles 
of  luxury,  but  the  men  who  have  created  the  largest 
amount  of  advertising  are  the  makers  of  the  staple 
goods  of  every-day  life. 

To  give  some  idea  of  the  promises  of  advertising 
in  the  future,  it  may  be  said  that  in  the  great  depart- 
ment of  textiles  but  little  has  yet  been  done.  It  is  be- 
lieved that  the  greatest  field  for  future  advertising  lies 
here — that  is,  in  the  actual  fabrics  from  which  cloth- 
ing is  made.  Clothing  material  as  made  up  for  both 
men's  and  women's  garments  has  received  consider- 
able advertising  in  the  last  few  years,  but  the  possi- 
bilities are  far 'greater  to  the  manufacturer  of  the 
fabric  itself  than  they  are  to  the  man  who  manufac- 
tures from  that  fabric. 

Thomas  Balmer,  the  advertising  manager  of  the 
Butterick  Trio,  is  largely  responsible  for  the  cam- 
paign which  is  intended  to  bring  about  greater  adver- 
tising of  textiles.  He  has  shown  that  there  are  hun- 
dreds of  mills  manufacturing  cotton,  woolen  and  silk 
goods  whose  aggregate  product  is  more  valuable  than 
the  entire  output  of  iron  and  steel.  Such  houses  have 
a  capital  of  from  half  a  million  to  several  million  dol- 
lars, and  are  making  products  that  are  standard  in  all 
good  stores,  but  which  are  known  by  name  to  the  trade 
only,  and  reach  the  consumer  unmarked  or  unidenti- 
fied, either  in  the  form  of  cloth  sold  over  the  counter, 


THE  GENERAL  ADVERTISER  105 

or  of  garments  made  up  from  it.     Speaking  of  the 
possibilities  of  this  field,  Mr.  Balmer  says : 

"  The  originators  of  the  present  movement  have 
been  instrumental  in  advancing  the  interests  of  many 
lines  of  business  by  bringing  them  into  close  touch 
with  the  consumers  of  their  wares.  Numerous  in- 
stances of  large  exploitation  and  success  can  be  shown. 
If  in  other  fields,  why  not  in  the  rich  realm  of  tex- 
tiles ?  Hence  the  concerted  effort  during  the  fall  of 
1903  to  present  the  advantage  of  newspaper  advertis- 
ing to  a  class  of  producers  which  has  hitherto  neg- 
lected this  great  field  of  publicity.  The  textile  in- 
dustry, which  outranks  in  importance  the  iron  and 
steel  and  any  other  single  industry  in  the  United 
States,  has  been  barely  touched.  Most  of  the  business 
of  the  great  manufacturing  concerns  which  produce 
the  every-day  necessities  of  the  millions  of  American 
consumers  is  done  through  the  old-fashioned  agencies, 
which  practically  limit  their  output  to  the  selling  ca- 
pacity of  the  one  or  more  commission  merchants  who 
have  the  handling  of  their  products.  Manufacturers 
are  not  content  with  this  slow  system,  but  they  have 
put  up  with  it  because  until  now  nothing  better  has 
been  offered.  They  have  been  asking  themselves, 
'  Can  we  advertise  our  products  ?  If  so,  how  ? '  The 
cooperative  workers  are  to  demonstrate  that  they  can 
most  profitably  advertise  and  are  to  show  them 
how.  In  the  belief  of  these  campaigners,  profitable 
advertising  opportunities  are  open  to  manufacturers 
of  carpets,  Turkish  towels,  furniture,  shoes,  knit  goods 
(including  stockings  and  underwear),  dress  goods 
(whether  of  silk,  wool,  cotton  or  any  mixture),  dress 
linings,  braids,  curtains,  laces,  velvets,  sweaters, 


106  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

haircloth,  hammocks,  flannels,  plain  and  cotton 
sheetings,  lap-robes,  skirts,  cloaks,  suits,  wear  for 
children,  high-grade  toilet  articles  and  a  hundred 
articles  besides.  The  movement  is  recognized  as  a 
large  one,  if  not  revolutionary;  and  the  indications 
are  that  many  manufacturers  will  go  into  it  on  the 
Shakespearian  suggestion  of  taking  the  tide  at  the 
flood." 

The  general  advertiser  of  to-day  has  come  into  be- 
ing more  or  less  by  chance.  The  pioneer  in  each  line 
has  had  advertising  thrust  upon  him.  The  history  of 
the  business  of  making  and  marketing  breakfast  foods, 
ranging  from  plain  oatmeal  in  packages  to  prepared 
flake  foods,  will  give  some  idea  of  the  development  of 
the  modern  general  advertiser.  Oatmeal  has  been  a 
staple  in  this  country  for  many  years.  It  was  simply 
the  oat  berry  with  the  husk  removed,  dried  and 
cleaned.  The  first  attempt  to  improve  it  was  to  cook 
the  oatmeal,  and  thus  came  into  existence  Hornby's 
Oats,  better  known  as  "  H-O." 

The  introduction  of  this  improvement  in  breakfast 
oats  led  to  the  putting  of  oats  into  packages  and  giv- 
ing them  a  name.  From  this  came  the  beginning  of 
oatmeal  advertising.  The  original  package  of  Horn- 
by's Oats  had  upon  the  cover  a  picture  of  Oliver  Twist 
asking  for  more.  The  first  advertising  of  H-O  ap- 
peared seventeen  years  ago,  but  that  cover  has  been 
retained  ever  since,  though  it  comports  ill  with  the 
attractive  modern  designs  of  to-day.  Then  followed 
in  rapid  succession  other  packages  of  oatmeals  pre- 
pared in  various  ways — steam-cooked,  cracked,  hulled 
and  otherwise  made  palatable. 

Following  preparations  of  oats,   came  prepared 


THE  GENERAL  ADVERTISER  107 

wheat  until  a  large  number  of  brands  of  oatmeals  and 
prepared  wheats,  under  different  names  and  trade- 
marks, were  advertised  all  over  the  country  and  sold 
in  grocery  stores.  The  next  step  brought  the  prepared 
breakfast  food. 

A  broken-down,  worn-out  man,  whose  stomach  had 
failed  him,  and  whose  life  was  despaired  of  by  physi- 
cians, had  resided  in  various  parts  of  the  country  for 
his  health  and  finally  arrived  in  Battle  Creek,  Michi- 
gan. At  a  sanitarium  he  was  given  a  prepared  food 
which  had  such  effect  upon  his  system  that  he  re- 
covered. Naturally  his  interest  in  this  food  was 
great,  and  he  tried  to  induce  the  proprietor  of  the 
sanitarium  to  put  it  on  the  market  and  sell  it  more 
largely.  The  man  was  disinclined  to  do  so,  but  the 
patient  resolved  to  take  it  up  himself.  He  began 
to  prepare  it  in  a  small  way,  and,  after  considerable 
difficulty,  succeeded  in  making  it  in  quantities  and 
selling  it  by  advertising.  The  sales  rapidly  increased 
until  the  business  became  tremendously  prosperous. 
It  had  the  natural  effect  of  starting  a  large  number 
of  people  in  the  business  of  preparing  and  selling 
breakfast  foods. 

As  this  first  success  was  made  at  Battle  Creek,  the 
attention  of  the  immediate  townsmen  of  the  orig- 
inal inventor  and  promoter  was  attracted  largely  to 
this  business  until  the  little  town  of  Battle  Creek  be- 
came the  center  of  the  breakfast-food  business.  It 
is  said  that  there  are  now  over  forty  different  varie- 
ties of  prepared  foods  made  in  Battle  Creek.  Only  a 
few  of  them,  however,  have  reached  a  national  sale 
and  advertising  prominence.  But  the  idea  has  been 
caught  up  everywhere  until  to-day  the  magazine  pages 


108  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

and  newspaper  columns  are  filled  with  "  flake-food  " 
advertising. 

Oatmeal  concerns  are  still  advertising  oatmeal,  es- 
pecially in  the  winter  months  when  a  cooked  break- 
fast food  is  desired.  Prepared  foods  require  little  or 
no  cooking.  They  are  ready  to  serve,  and  on  account 
of  this  simplicity  have  reached  a  wide  sale. 

Because  one  food  has  led  to  a  big  success  in  ad- 
vertising, others  have  followed.  A  breakfast  food 
can  not  necessarily  be  sold  by  advertising  more  readily 
than  other  products.  In  fact,  the  more  staple  goods 
are  far  better  for  permanent  and  lasting  advertising 
than  anything  which,  even  at  a  most  liberal  estimate, 
may  be  described  as  a  fad  or  a  temporary  fashion.  A 
prepared  breakfast  food  probably  has  secured  more 
than  temporary  demand  or  a  demand  that  has  been 
forced  and  created  by  advertising.  Still  it  can  easily 
be  seen  that  a  demand  for  fabrics  from  which  clothing 
is  made  is  based  upon  a  deeper  and  more  inherent 
want  than  the  demand  for  a  breakfast  food.  Food 
itself  is  fundamental,  but  the  particular  form  of  food 
found  in  flake  breakfast  foods  is  more  likely  to  be  a 
passing  fancy  than  a  permanent  demand.  The  adver- 
tising of  crackers  and  biscuits,  for  example,  is  based 
upon  a  deeper  and  wider  demand  because  the  cracker 
is  almost  as  old  as  human  civilization.  The  form  of 
it  may  vary,  but  the  thing  itself  is  here  to  stay. 

Other  general  advertisers  came  into  the  advertis- 
ing field  in  somewhat  the  same  way.  Some  one  house, 
for  example,  advertised  "  toilet  soap,"  "  laundry 
soap,"  "  scouring  soap,"  or  packing-house  products 
such  as  soups  and  canned  meats,  or  watches,  writing- 
papers,  ready-made  clothing,  collars  and  cuffs,  or,  in 


THE  GENERAL  ADVERTISER       109 

fact,  any  other  article  now  found  in  the  magazines  and 
newspapers.  Each  different  article  was  advertised 
first  by  some  pioneer  who  broke  ground  and  proved 
the  possibilities. 

The  three  great  wants  of  a  civilized  being  are  food, 
clothing  and  shelter,  and  from  food,  clothing  and  shel- 
ter the  great  articles  for  the  advertising  of  the  future 
are  to  come.  Food  has  been  the  first  to  be  used  in 
.seizing  upon  the  opportunity.  From  food  advertis- 
ing has  been  evolved  the  package.  The  material  for 
the  package,  whether  carton,  glass  or  tin,  affords  an 
easy  method  of  trade-marking  the  eatables.  The  first 
idea  was  to  make  the  package  characteristic  and  con- 
spicuous, to  which  now  late  advertising  insists  on 
adding  the  quality  of  attractiveness. 

With  clothing  the  work  has  not  gone  so  far  as  yet. 
Manufactured  clothing  for.  both  men  and  women  ap- 
pears in  magazine  advertising,  but  the  goods  from 
which  clothing  is  made  are  only  beginning  to  lift  their 
heads.  Nearly  everything  that  men  and  women  wear 
is  made  up  from  cptton,  wool  or  silk  goods  or  com- 
binations of  these.  From  them  are  produced  under- 
wear, stockings,  undermuslins,  waists,  skirts,  dresses, 
coats,  wraps  and  hats  for  women,  and  underwear, 
hose,  shirts,  collars,  cuffs,  overcoats  and  hats  for  men. 

The  most  that  the  average  woman  knows  is  the 
name  of  a  house  which  makes  a  given  manufactured 
article  of  clothing,  such  as  a  skirt.  The  most  that 
any  man  knows  is  the  name  of  the  completed  suit  or 
shirt.  Whose  muslin  is  used  and  how  good  is  it ;  what 
woolen  goods  are  used  and  how  good  are  they ;  whose 
yarn  goes  into  the  underwear  and  whose  feathers  and 
ribbons  into  the  hat,  are  facts  almost  unknown  to  the 


110  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

wearer.  These  are  the  questions  that  advertising  is 
beginning  to  answer,  and  when  it  answers  them 
completely  advertising  will  have  reached  its  fullest 
development. 

After  clothing  comes  building  material.  Only  a 
few  of  the  things  that  go  into  the  building  of  a  house 
are  advertised  at  present.  These  few  things  are  inci- 
dental, such  as  the  stains  used  on  shingles,  the  wax 
for  the  floors,  the  wall-papers,  the  woodwork,  and 
now  recently,  tin  and  other  forms  of  roofing.  Yet 
there  is  not  a  brick,  board,  tile,  pipe,  window-frame, 
sash,  glass  or  other  unit  used  in  building  a  house 
which  is  not  made  somewhere,  which  does  not  have 
certain  qualities  of  merit,  and  which  might  not  be  ad- 
vantageously advertised  to  the  house  owner,  builder, 
contractor,  architect  or  carpenter. 

After  these  three  great  necessities  come  a  long  list 
of  luxuries  and  semi-luxuries — such  as  pianos,  organs, 
automobiles,  typewriters,  rifles,  revolvers,  bath-tubs 
and  the  like.  In  this  list  we  must  not  overlook  two 
great  departments;  one  the  accessories  of  the  toilet; 
the  other  house  furnishings.  In  the  toilet  accessories 
soaps  lead.  In  the  household  accessories  refrigerators, 
kitchen-cabinets  and  scouring  soaps  have  been  ex- 
ploited, but  not  in  the  same  proportion.  Every  one 
knows  what  scouring  soap  to  buy,  but  what  linoleum 
are  you  going  to  put  on  the  kitchen-floor  ?  You  can 
think  of  the  names  of  several  good  refrigerators  off- 
hand. At  least  two  good  bath-tubs  are  well  adver- 
tised, but  does  any  one  know  the  name  of  a  good,  re- 
liable, artistic,  sanitary  brass  and  iron  bed  ? 

The  possibilities  with  unadvertised  goods  are  as 
great  as  or  even  greater  than  those  of  goods  that  have 


THE  GENERAL  ADVERTISER       111 

already  been  advertised.  If,  for  instance,  a  man  may 
buy  cloth  and  make  it  up  into  men's  suits  and  women's 
skirts,  and  advertise  these  garments  under  a  trade- 
marked  name  and  make  money,  how  much  more 
should  the  manufacturer  of  the  fabrics  advertise  his 
goods  under  his  own  name  and  mark  with  profit  ?  A 
woman  who  buys  dress-goods  would  then  ask  for  them 
by  name,  and  the  manufacturer  who  makes  garments 
would  gladly  advertise  that  his  goods  were  made  out 
of  such  and  such  woolen  fabrics,  lined  with  such  and 
such  silk,  bound  with  such  and  such  braid,  using  such 
and  such  hooks  and  eyes,  dress  boning  and  any  other 
advertised  specialty  which  has  been  incorporated  in 
the  making.  Such  a  manufacturer  would  be  backed 
up  by  the  publicity  given  to  the  articles  he  has  used. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  public  would  be  protected, 
for  the  manufacturer  who  could  not  say  that  such 
and  such  well-known  established  brands  of  goods 
had  been  used  would  bring  discredit  upon  his  own 
product. 

To  go  back  to  the  beginning  of  our  list  of  necessi- 
ties, let  us  take  food  products  again.  A  biscuit  com- 
pany has  made  a  tremendous  and  overwhelming  suc- 
cess by  giving  a  trade-mark  to  a  whole  line  of  cracker 
specialties,  with  a  name  for  each  different  kind,  and 
then  advertising  them.  This  success  has  been  so  com- 
plete and  overwhelming  that  it  has  made  advertising 
history.  We  are  also  familiar  with  innumerable 
breakfast  food  products  which  we  know  by  name. 
The  packing-house  food  products  have  become  staple 
and  are  found  in  every  home.  Many  coffees,  teas, 
sugars,  salad  dressings,  pickles,  olives,  canned  fruits, 
vegetables  and  soups  are  asked  for  by  name.  Several 
9 


112  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

different  brands  of  each,  all  good,  pure  and  whole- 
some, can  be  bought  at  any  corner  grocery. 

Let  us  stop  and  think  how  this  has  simplified  busi- 
ness and  how  it  protects  the  consumer.  In  the  days 
of  bulk  goods,  everything  had  to  be  ladled  out, 
weighed  and  measured.  Sugar,  coffee,  salt,  crackers, 
and  about  everything  else  was  weighed  in  the  same 
brass  scoop,  handled  by  the  grocer's  hands,  and 
wrapped  up  in  paper  on  which  the  cat  had  been  sleep- 
ing all  the  afternoon.  Now  if  you  ask  a  grocer  for 
any  one  of  a  large  number  of  products  by  name,  you 
get  it  in  a  container  which  remains  sealed  from  the 
time  when  it  leaves  the  factory  till  opened  in  your 
kitchen.  The  only  chance  of  contamination  lies  in 
the  making,  and  the  cleanliness  of  large  plants  is  one 
of  the  strong  points  in  the  advertising.  Food  packed 
in  air-tight,  moisture-proof  cartons,  or  in  wood,  tin, 
porcelain  or  glass,  is  not  only  easier  to  ask  for  on 
account  of  its  name,  but  easier  to  handle  by  both 
buyer  and  seller,  and  in  addition  is  protected  and 
clean.  One  can  buy  Domino  Sugar,  Uneeda  Biscuit, 
or  any  of  the  "57  varieties/'  in  the  dirtiest  gro- 
cery stores,  with  the  same  safety  and  protection  as  at 
Park  &  Tilford's. 

One  article  that  has  not  yet  been  canned  and  sold 
is  common  molasses.  We  used  to  eat  ginger  cookies, 
gingerbread,  Indian  pudding  and  other  things  made 
from  the  best  New  Orleans  molasses.  We  do  not 
have  these  things  now  as  much  as  we  did  then.  The 
housewife  doesn't  use  molasses  to  cook  with  as  she 
once  did  because  she  can  not  get  the  molasses.  Re- 
finers have  been  depreciating  their  product  until  only 
the  poorest  grades  of  molasses  can  be  had,  and  they 


THE  GENERAL  ADVERTISER       113 

are  bought  only  by  the  poorest  grade  of  housewives. 
The  better  sort  of  housewife  does  without  molasses 
and  cooks  with  other  things.  Suppose  a  refiner,  mak- 
ing a  really  high-grade  molasses,  should  can  it  so  that 
it  could  be  protected  and  named,  and  should  advertise 
the  brand.  The  use  of  molasses  for  cooking  would 
then  be  resumed.1 

Maple-sirup  is  a  product  to  which  justice  has 
never  been  done.  If  any  one  could  secure  a  steady 
supply  of  real  maple-sugar,  the  kind  that  comes  right 
out  of  the  maple-trees  up  in  the  Vermont  woods,  and 
would  can  or  bottle  it,  preserving  the  delicate  maple 
taste,  he  would  build  up  a  big  business. 

Salt  is  an  article  used  by  every  human  being.  It 
is  as  old  as  the  human  race,  and  has  so  little  variation 
as  to  quality  that  a  case  which  occupied  the  attention 
of  the  courts  recently,  is  in  point.  The  receiver  of 
the  National  Salt  Company  testified  in  this  court  that 
a  certain  trade-mark  was  considered  a  valuable  asset 
of  his  company,  being  the  salt  brand  of  the  best  mar- 
ket and  highest  price.  When  the  court  inquired  what 
caused  the  demand  for  that  particular  salt,  which,  as 
the  witness  had  previously  admitted  on  the  witness 
stand,  differed  in  no  way  from  other  brands  manu- 
factured by  the  same  company,  the  witness  said : 
"  The  demand  is  due  to  the  extensive  and  attractive 
advertising  of  that  particular  brand."  In  other 
words,  it  was  proved  that  advertising  had  made  salt 
more  valuable  when  sold  under  this  brand  than  the 
same  salt  sold  otherwise. 

At  first  thought  this  seems  to  be  a  reflection  upon 

1  Since  the  above  was  in  type  a  well-known  house  has  begun  to 
advertise  canned  molasses  of  superior  quality  as  an  experiment. 


114  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

advertising,  but  is  it  ?  It  simply  means  that  the  pub- 
lic can  be  taught  to  ask  for  salt  by  name,  just  as 
readily  as  it  can  be  taught  to  ask  for  any  other  article 
of  human  consumption.  There  was  no  intention  to 
deceive  the  public.  The  salt  company  simply  sold  as 
much  salt  under  this  brand  as  the  public  would  ask 
for.  It  would  be  possible  to  put  up  salt  in  a  special 
package,  in  unusually  attractive  form,  and  packed  in 
a  way  that  would  keep  the  salt  dry  and  in  pulverized 
form,  and  make  of  it  a  successfully  advertised  article. 
Such  a  step  would  be  a  convenience  to  the  public,  one 
of  the  conveniences  brought  about  by  modern  adver- 
tising. This  confirms  the  growing  belief  in  the  ad- 
vertising world  that  no  article  which  is  bought  and 
sold  is  outside  of  the  pale  of  possible  advertising 
development. 

Starch  is  an  every-day  household  article.  It  is 
interesting  to  know  that  the  starch  now  being  adver- 
tised in  the  magazines  so  attractively  and  effectively, 
Kingsford's  Oswego  Gloss  Starch,  which  was  known 
in  every  household  thirty  years  ago,  began  its  adver- 
tising campaign  at  that  time.  Old  copies  of  Scrib- 
ner's  Magazine,  the  predecessor  of  the  Century,  show 
full-page  advertisements  of  this  starch.  The  page 
contains  one  dense  mass  of  type  with  a  view  of  the 
factory  at  the  top.  It  would  be  interesting  to  know 
why  starch  was  advertised  then,  or  why,  being  once 
advertised,  its  campaign  stopped,  and  why  having 
stopped  it  was  begun  again.  A  starch  which  has 
served  its  purpose  for  a  third  of  a  century  and  gone 
into  every-day  household  use,  is  the  kind  of  staple  that 
will  become  the  bone  and  sinew  of  the  advertising  of 
the  future. 


THE  GENERAL  ADVERTISER  115 

The  National  Biscuit  Company  is  an  association 
of  cracker  bakers  who  have  combined  to  manufacture 
high-grade  products.  They  have  given  these  products 
a  name  and  trade-mark,  and  are  advertising  them  to 
the  housewives  of  the  country.  That  is  why  you  know 
instantly  what  you  will  get  if  you  ask  for  Uneeda  Bis- 
cuit, Kennedy  Oysterettes,  Zu  Zu  Ginger  Snaps,  Na- 
bisco Wafers  and  a  dozen  other  cracker  delicacies. 

Why  should  the  people  of  this  country  be  more 
vitally  interested  in  the  food  they  are  going  to  eat 
than  they  are  in  the  clothing  they  are  to  wear  ?  They 
pay  a  good  deal  more  for  their  clothes  and  their  gar- 
ments are  equally  important.  They  are  vitally  inter- 
ested in  them  but  no  one  has  taught  them  about 
fabrics.  A  woman  picks  out  her  dress  from  the  dress- 
goods  shown  by  the  salesman.  A  man  picks  out  the 
cloth,  but  he  knows  not  who  makes  it,  and  probably 
never  will  until  some  manufacturer  of  woolen  goods 
is  wise  enough  to  give  his  goods  a  name  and  tell  peo- 
ple why  they  should  insist  on  having  their  clothes 
made  out  of  his  goods. 

This  line  of  reasoning  has  appealed  to  the  Ameri- 
can Woolen  Company,  which  may  be  selected  as  typi- 
cal of  the  general  advertisers  which  are  at  this  moment 
beginning  to  recognize  the  power  of  advertising  as  an 
adjunct  to  the  largest  business.  While  this  book  is 
being  written,  the  American  Woolen  Company  is  be- 
ginning to  experiment  with  advertising.  Three  lead- 
ing magazines  have  been  selected  for  the  purpose — a 
woman's  monthly,  a  man's  weekly  and  a  general  mag- 
azine. In  each  of  these  the  woolen  manufacturers 
are  advertising  a  definite  brand  of  American-made 
woolen  cloth.  So  important  is  this  experiment  from 


116  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

an  advertising  point  of  view  that  the  first  of  these 
advertisements  is  herewith  reproduced. 

One  of  the  immediate  and  direct  effects  of  this 
preliminary  advertising  was  shown  in  the  announce- 
ment by  a  department  store  in  New  York  City.  This 
house  said  in  its  newspaper  advertisements  that  a  cer- 
tain line  of  men's  suits  was  made  from  the  American 
Woolen  Company's  Washington  Navy  Serge.  The 
retail  advertising  was  the  strongest  sort  of  evidence 
that  the  advertising  of  the  woolen  company  had  added 
to  the  value  of  their  product.  Here  is  the  situation 
as  far  as  this  company  is  concerned :  The  American 
Woolen  Company  is  a  combination  of  twenty-seven 
mills  manufacturing  woolen  and  worsted  fabrics. 
This  combination  is  not  a  trust,  but  a  combination 
for  securing  better  facilities  in  marketing  goods. 
The  various  plants  comprise  650  acres  having  7,044,- 
494  feet  of  floor  space  devoted  to  the  manufacture 
of  woolen  goods.  The  corporation  is  capitalized  at 
$65,000,000. 

According  to  estimates  by  a  writer  in  the  Textile 
World  Record,  the  total  value  of  woolens  and  worsteds 
of  domestic  "manufacture  in  1902  was  about  $297,- 
000,000,  while  the  income  of  the  American  Woolen 
Company  for  the  same  year  was  given  at  $35,500,000. 
This  company  then  is  making  but  twelve  and  one-half 
per  cent,  or  one-eighth  of  the  total  amount  of  domestic 
woolens.  Its  field,  therefore,  to  be  cultivated  by  ad- 
vertising, is  the  other  seven-eighths,  together  with  that 
now  covered  by  the  imported  woolens  which  represent 
really  only  six  per  cent,  of  the  value  of  the  woolens 
used  in  this  country. 

The  facts  which  have  appealed  to  the  American 


every  man  has  a  blue  serge  suit  each 
year  or  so.    If  he  has  one  in  the  summer  he 

J  •     «          f  • 


I**"*  may  not  secure  a  heavyweight  for  winter 
but,  nevertheless,  blue  serges  are  always  desirable 


in  season  or  out. 

Now  there  are  certain  points  about  blue  serges 
that  are  important. 

It  is  doubtful  if  any  one  wishes  to  use  his  suit 
for  a  mirror  the  second  time  he  wears  it : 

THE  WASHINGTON  NAVY  SERGE  is 

not  made  to  shine. 

Nor  does  a  man  desire  the  color  to  fade 
the  first  time  he  appears  in  the  sun; 

THE  WASHINGTON  NAVY  SERGE  is 
pure  indigo  dyed  and  the  color  is  absolutely  fast. 

And  speaking  of  color,  THE  WASHING- 
TON NAVY  SERGE  is  not  of  a  light,  scream- 
ing blue  but  is  of  that  deep,  rich  blue  that  we 
admire  so  much  in  the  uniforms  of  our  naval 
officers. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  this  worsted  serge  is 
made  in  strict  accordance  with  the  U.  S.  Govern- 
ment requirements  and  has  been  adopted  by  it  as 
its  Standard. 

If  you  can't  secure  it  at  your  jobber's,  clothier's 
or  tailor's*  write  us. 

AMERICAN  WOOLEN  COMPANY 

WM.  M.  WOOD,  Vice,Pr«L  and  Tn 

Boston 


THE  FIRST  ADVERTISEMENT  OF  THE  AMERICAN  WOOLEN  COMPANY. 
NOTEWORTHY  AS  ONE  OF  THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  TEXTILE  ADVER- 
TISING. 

117 


118  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

Woolen  Company  are  just  as  true  of  silks,  cottons, 
muslins  and  cambrics,  as  well  as  of  silesia,  farmer's 
satin,  taffeta,  haircloth,  buttons,  hooks  and  eyes,  buck- 
les and  other  articles  that  go  into  male  and  female 
garments.  People  ought  to  know  about  the  goods 
from  which  their  clothes  are  made.  The  manufac- 
turers have  no  secure  asset  in  their  goods ;  they  have 
nothing  to  protect  them ;  they  are  at  the  mercy  of  the 
jobbers,  commission  men  and  wholesalers  who  handle 
their  goods.  Even  though  they  have  strong,  industrial 
combinations,  there  is  nothing  to  prevent  an  equally 
strong  combination  being  formed  to  manufacture 
woolen  goods  which  will  be  advertised  and  sold  under 
a  trade-marked  name,  and  such  a  combination  could 
take  away  their  trade. 

The  advertising  of  threads  and  yarns  from  which 
goods  are  woven  and  of  the  fabrics  themselves  of 
which  they  are  made,  will  show  the  greatest  adver- 
tising development  of  the  next  twenty-five  years. 
When  the  time  comes  that  these  things  are  advertised, 
advertising  will  assume  a  permanence  enjoyed  now 
only  by  the  oldest  and  strongest  financial  institutions. 
Building  material,  the  flesh  and  blood  of  the  houses 
in  which  we  live,  affords  another  great  possibility. 

Those  who  are  keen  students  of  cause  and  effect 
have  read  in  the  slump  of  United 'States  steel  stocks 
an  advertising  story.  The  United  States  Steel  Com- 
pany has  a  large  department  in  the  manufacture  of 
steel  beams  for  skyscrapers.  In  the  last  two  years  an 
epidemic  of  building  swept  over  the  country.  In  New 
York  especially  hundreds  of  new  buildings  shot  up 
into  the  air.  The  tremendous  building  strikes,  both 
in  the  East  and  West,  partially  paralyzed  these  enter- 


THE  GENERAL  ADVERTISER       119 

prises.  Many  buildings  remained  unfinished  on  this 
account,  and  other  projects  were  called  off.  The  de- 
mands on  the  United  States  Steel  Company  fell  off. 
That  its  business  suffered  was  shown  in  the  shrink- 
ing of  values  in  its  securities. 

It  may  seem  preposterous  to  say  that  if  this  com- 
pany had  advertised  it  could  have  kept  its  business 
on  a  better  basis.  And  yet  here  is  a  plan  which  was 
made  for  it,  and  which,  it  is  understood,  has  since 
been  considered  favorably.  The  number  of  skyscrap- 
ers will  necessarily  be  limited,  but  there  is  a  field  for 
which  there  will  be  a  practically  unlimited  demand. 
This  is  the  manufacture  of  steel  skeletons  for  two, 
three,  and  four  story  houses  both  for  small  towns  and 
in  the  country.  These  houses  would  be  made  com- 
plete and  shipped  to  the  point  of  erection  and  there 
put  together.  They  would  be  indestructible,  light, 
strong,  durable,  taking  little  bulk  in  proportion  to 
their  great  strength  and  size.  All  sorts  of  small  plants, 
factories,  warehouses,  barns,  cold-storage  houses  and 
things  of  that  kind  would  be  constructed  in  this  way. 
There  is  practically  no  limit  to  the  use  of  steel  for 
this  purpose.  Such  a  plan  would  necessitate  adver- 
tising and  advertising  on  the  grandest  scale. 

This  little  forecast  will  put  a  thinking  man  in 
line  with  the  present  development  of  advertising. 
Too  many  people  look  upon  it  as  a  method  of 
exploiting  novelties — patented  articles  which  neces- 
sarily must  have  a  small  sale  and  limited  field, 
or  which  will  be  easily  displaced  by  some  future 
invention. 

It  is  safe  to  say  that  no  development  in  the  arts 
and  manufactures  will  ever  displace  textile  fabrics  or 


120  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

the  staple  foods,  and  this  Is  already  the  foundation 
for  the  work  of  the  general  advertiser  in  the  present 
as  well  as  the  future.  Quite  a  number  of  products 
have  been  advertised  continuously  for  forty  years  and 
are  well  known  to-day.  Among  them  are  the  Wheel- 
er &  Wilson  Sewing  Machines,  Sozodont,  Sapolio, 
Waltham  Watches,  Gorham's  Silver  Plate,  Coates' 
Thread,  Tiffany,  and  Thompson's  Glove-Fitting  Cor- 
set. Other  products  which  have  been  before  the  pub- 
lic for  a  long  time  and  are  at  this  writing  established 
business  successes,  are  Walter  A.  Baker's  Cocoa, 
Royal  Baking  Powder,  Mellin's  Food,  Ferris'  Hams 
and  Apollinaris  Water. 

Railroad  companies  are  large  general  advertisers, 
though,  of  course,  their  product  is  transportation 
which  is  delivered  by  the  railroad  itself  instead  of 
being  sold  over  the  counter  of  a  retail  store.  Figures 
furnished  for  1903  put  the  total  amount  spent  by 
railroads  in  advertising  at  $1,265,000.  Of  this 
amount  the  !XTew  York  Central  spent  $348,457.00; 
the  St.  Paul,  $150,647.00;  the  Erie,  $84,335.00;  the 
Baltimore  &  Ohio,  $147,564.00;  the  Northwestern, 
$260,947.00;  the  Santa  Fe,  $251,532.00;  the  South- 
ern, $76,438.00. 

The  amount  of  advertising  done  by  general  adver- 
tisers in  this  country  may  be  expressed  in  figures.  A 
copy  of  McClure's  Magazine  for  December,  1904, 
contained  171  pages  of  advertising  matter  for  which 
the  publisher  received  $66,816.00.  An  average  copy 
of  Munsey's  Magazine  represents  $75,000.00  in  ad- 
vertising. The  average  monthly  income  of  the  ten 
leading  magazines  of  the  country  from  advertising  is 
$344,196.00.  This  would  amount  for  the  year  to 


THE  GENERAL  ADVERTISER 


121 


$4,130,352.00.     The  monthly  income  of  the  Ladies' 
Home  Journal  is  SiSSjOOO.1 

One  thing  that  must  not  be  forgotten  is  that  no 
advertising  success  has  been  built  upon  anything  but 
merit — that  is,  merit  in  the  article  sold. 

1  According  to  an  estimate  published  in  Printers'  Ink,  the 
amount  of  paid  advertising  carried  by  each  of  the  leading  month- 
lies for  December,  1904,  is  as  follows : 


PAGES. 

AGATE  LINES. 

192 

43.776 

Harper's  Monthly.         

181 

41,496 

Everybody's                           .  .       <  .  .  .  . 

175 

39,900 

McGlure's  

171 

39,047 

150 

34,980 

Century                    .           

150 

34,392 

Mun^ey's              .           .       

151 

34088 

Country  Life  in  America  (cols.) 

193 

33306 

World's  Work    

138 

32,172 

Atlantic  Monthly  ...         

121 

28.628 

Booklovers               .       

120 

27,732 

Leslie's  Monthly 

114 

25992 

101 

23,432 

Ladies'  Home  Journal  (cols.)  

114 

22,800 

Cosmopolitan           .... 

90 

20520 

Four  Track  News                  

88 

19712 

146 

19,640 

Good  Housekeeping  

84 

19,152 

Red  Book                      

84 

19,152 

The  World  To-day 

80 

18560 

Woman's  Home  Companion  (cols  ) 

86 

17273 

Ainslee's  

69 

16,284 

Pearson's          .   

67 

15,580 

Outing                      ........ 

64 

14999 

96 

14,626 

64 

14,626 

Lippincott's  .  .  .  . 

63 

14,490 

Strand              

50 

11,860 

Argosy                             

49 

11398 

Ladies'  World  

53 

10,693 

45 

10,372 

Designer  (cols.)  

75 

10,129 

Field  and  Stream  

36 

8,565 

122  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

In  a  recent  number  of  one  of  the  magazines  a 
strong  arraignment  of  the  methods  of  the  Royal  Bak- 
ing Powder  Company  was  made.  It  was  shown  that 
not  only  good  advertising  but  corruption  was  used  to 
create  a  prejudice  against  alum  baking  powders  and 
to  enhance  the  belief  in  Royal  Baking  Powder.  Some 
of  the  methods  employed  were  said  to  be  wrong ;  others 
were  questionable,  but  nevertheless  a  great  amount 
of  good  advertising  was  done  for  Royal  Baking  Pow- 
der, and  the  fact  remains  that  the  baking  powder  itself 
was  good.  To  sum  up  the  statement  of  the  author,  it 
was  said  that  the  Royal  Baking  Powder  Company 
had  capitalized  at  twenty  million  dollars  an  impres- 
sion that  alum  in  baking  powder  was  bad. 

One  can  pick  out  many  successes — that  is,  appar- 
ent successes — which  have  been  made  to  start,  move 
and  feel  the  thrill  of  life  by  good  advertising.  Good 
advertising  has  been  able  to  keep  them  alive  for  a 
while,  but  no  amount  of  advertising  has  been  able  to 
make  them  permanent.  It  will  always  require  more 
advertising  than  the  profits  justify  to  keep  a  poor 
article  on  the  market. 

All  schemes  which  are  avowedly  and  frankly 
swindles  are  bound  to  be  found  out  in  the  long  run. 
All  commercial  articles  overadvertised  or  advertised 
as  being  better  than  they  really  are,  will  react  in  the 
end.  Take  the  whole  business  of  proprietary  reme- 
dies. These  have  been  on  the  market  for  a  long  time. 
Many  articles  are  known  as  proprietary  remedies 
which  are  of  unusual  merit.  Some  of  these  are  to-day 
as  staple  as  the  regular  drugs  of  the  pharmacopoeia — 
for  example  Pond's  Extract,  Scott's  Emulsion,  Vase- 
line, and  Listerine,  which  are  proprietary  remedies. 


THE  GENERAL  ADVERTISER  123 

There  are  others  which  are  of  the  class  that  make  the 
most  scrupulous  publications  refuse  to  accept  them 
for  advertising.  Such  advertising  is  now  confined  to 
inferior  magazines  and  newspapers.  It  is  question- 
able, to  say  the  least,  and  the  beginning  of  their  end 
has  come. 

Taking  strictly  commercial  articles — foods,  cloth- 
ing, building  materials,  toilet  articles  and  household 
goods — there  is  no  great  success  which  has  not  been 
built  upon  a  meritorious  article.  Think  how  much 
easier  it  is  to  advertise  advertising  in  the  Ladies' 
Home  Journal  than  to  advertise  advertising  in  hun- 
dreds of  minor  women's  publications.  Think  how 
much  stronger  the  story  of  the  Butter ick  Trio  than  of 
other  publications,  legitimate  in  their  way,  but  which 
have  not  the  same  service  to  offer.  It  is  a  thousand 
times  easier  to  sell  space  in  all  the  Butterick  publi- 
cations at  seven  dollars  a  line  than  it  is  to  sell  space 
in  a  weak  and  comparatively  unknown  woman's  paper 
at  fifty  cents  a  line. 

It  is  easier  to  get  a  high  price  for  the  best  goods 
than  a  ridiculously  low  price  for  inferior  goods.  This 
doesn't  seem  so  at  first  thought,  but  simply  try  it  on 
yourself.  Think  how  many  things  can  be  said  about 
the  Ladies'  Home  Journal  compared  with  the  things 
that  can  be  said  about  a  number  of  other  publications 
against  which  you  have  an  instinctive  prejudice  that 
they  are  not  really  worth  anything. 

A  business  man  once  said :  "  Look  what  Oster- 
moor  has  done  with  a  cheap  mattress.  Now  you  could 
not  do  that  with  a  fifty-dollar  hair  mattress."  Oster- 
moor's  success  with  his  mattress  came  because  he  ad- 
vertised it.  The  reason  more  were  sold  than  of  high- 


124  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

priced,  high-grade  hair  mattresses  was  because  no  man 
making  a  high-priced,  high-grade  hair  mattress  was 
advertising  it.  It  is  easier  to  sell  a  good  hair  mattress 
at  fifty  dollars  than  it  is  to  sell  a  felt  mattress  at 
fifteen  dollars,  but  the  makers  of  the  high-grade  goods 
do  not  know  this  and  do  not  believe  it.  Therefore 
they  leave  the  field  to  the  man  who  makes  the  cheaper 
goods.  This  is  not  saying  that  the  Ostermoor  mat- 
tress wants  merit.  It  is  saying,  however,  that  price 
is  no  obstacle  to  advertising  provided  the  goods  are 
worth  the  price.  Mr.  Ostermoor  gives  full  value  for 
his  fifteen  dollars.  Any  man  who  gives  full  value  can 
get  his  price. 

Recently  the  makers  of  a  roofing  tin  began  to  ad- 
vertise it  in  the  magazines.  It  is  the  highest  priced 
roofing  tin  made,  but  the  maker  asks  and  gets  this 
price  because  each  sheet  of  tin  is  dipped  by  hand  into 
the  tin  mixture  until  the  coating  of  tin  upon  the  black 
plate  is  thicker  than  that  found  upon  any  other  brand 
of  roofing  tin.  It  is  very  easy  to  advertise  such  a  tin 
as  that.  The  higher  price  is  no  obstacle.  About  a 
tin  which  is  preeminently  better  than  any  other  roof- 
ing tin  made  there  are  hundreds  of  things  to  be  said. 
The  only  thing  against  it  is  the  fact  that  its  price  is 
a  little  higher  than  the  next  best  tin,  but  that  is  a 
minor  consideration  when  you  can  make  the  strongest 
and  most  sweeping  assertions  about  the  tin  and  then 
back  them  up  by  proof.  The  reason  for  these  facts 
is  not  far  to  seek. 

In  any  advertising,  except  direct  mail-order  ad- 
vertising, the  cost  of  the  publicity  is  greater  than  the 
profits  on  a  single  sale.  If  no  one  ever  came  back 
for  a  second  cake  of  Sapolio  after  buying  the  first, 


THE  GENERAL  ADVERTISER  125 

Enoch  Morgan's  Sons  would  be  losing  money.  The 
first  advertisement  appears  in  the  magazines,  but  the 
second  must  be  the  goods  themselves.  If  any  house- 
wife buys  a  cake  of  Sapolio  and  finds  it  not  as  repre- 
sented, she  will  never  buy  it  again.'  No  amount  of 
magazine  advertising  can  get  her  to  repeat  her  first 
purchase.  It  costs  anywhere  from  fifty  cents  to  fifty 
dollars  to  get  a  customer  to  make  the  first  purchase, 
according  to  the  amount  of  money  to  be  invested  in 
the  article.  Suppose  that  the  manufacturer  pays  a 
dollar  to  induce  a  woman  to  go  to  a  grocery  store  to 
buy  Sapolio  at  five  cents  a  cake.  If  the  purchase  ends 
there,  after  he  has  paid  the  dealer  and  the  jobber  their 
profit,  his  net  loss  is  about  ninety-eight  cents.  But 
suppose  the  woman  who  is  attracted  to  Sapolio 
by  a  magazine  advertisement  buys  an  average  of 
three  cakes  a  week  for  her  household  for  fifty  years. 
Then  the  dollar  to  start  that  chain  was  a  good 
investment. 

There  is  an  instance  in  which  a  product  used  in 
cooking  failed  although  a  large  amount  of  money  was 
spent  in  advertising  it.  The  article  had  real  merit. 
It  was  a  compound,  however,  which  deteriorated  when 
allowed  to  stand  too  long — say,  several  months.  It 
must  be  used  while  fresh.  Circumstances  compelled 
the  company  making  it  to  manufacture  a  large  quan- 
tity which  was  not  handled  immediately.  When  it 
was  finally  put  upon  the  market,  it  had  lost  its 
strength.  The  advertising  induced  the  housewife  to 
buy.  One  trial  convinced  her  that  it  was  a  fraud. 
But  it  was  not  a  fraud,  for  if  these  goods  had  been 
remixed  they  would  have  been  just  as  effective  as 
ever.  Although  three  hundred  thousand  dollars  were 


126  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

spent  in  trying  to  sell  these  goods,  the  article  was  a 
failure  because  no  woman  could  be  induced  to  buy 
a  second  package. 

The  actual  value  of  a  trade-mark  to  a  widely- 
advertised  article  is  shown  in  the  history  of  Royal 
Baking  Powder.  The  actual  value  of  its  trade-mark 
has  been  variously  placed  at  large  sums  of  money.  It 
is  said  that  a  certain  corporation  once  offered  twelve 
million  dollars  for  the  use  of  the  word  "  Royal "  as 
applied  to  baking  powder,  and  the  offer  was  refused. 
The  company  is  incorporated  for  twenty  million  dol- 
lars, and  its  chief  asset  is  the  right  to  use  the  name 
"  Royal "  upon  its  baking  powder.  The  present 
Royal  Baking  Powder  Company  is  a  combination  of 
three  great  baking  powder  houses — Price,  Cleveland, 
and  Royal — and  it  is  now  one  of  the  leading  general 
advertisers  of  the  country.  The  Royal  Baking  Pow- 
der Company  maintains  its  own  advertising  depart- 
ment which  attempts  to  perform  the  functions  of  an 
agency.  It  will  only  use  publications  which  will 
grant  the  advertising  agent's  commission,  so  that  it 
is  generally  understood  that  where  the  Royal  Baking 
Powder  advertising  appears  a  special  price  has  been 
granted. 

The  beginning  of  baking-powder  advertising  is 
interesting.  About  forty  years  ago  an  itinerant  physi- 
cian, known  as  "  Doctor  "  Price,  peddled  various  pat- 
ent medicines  through  small  Illinois  towns.  These 
simple  remedies  were  peddled  from  house  to  house  and 
over  the  same  ground  year  after  year  until  "  Doctor  " 
Price  established  considerable  acquaintance  with  the 
housewives  in  these  towns.  In  this  way  he  found 
that  the  greatest  trouble  with  which  the  housewives 


THE  GENERAL  ADVERTISER  127 

in  those  days  had  to  contend  was  securing  fresh  yeast 
from  which  to  make  light  bread  and  cake.  So  fre- 
quently did  Doctor  Price  hear  this  story  that  he  set 
his  ingenuity  to  work  to  produce  some  article  which 
would  take  the  place  of  yeast.  He  had  some  knowl- 
edge of  chemistry  which  he  had  used  in  the  prepara- 
tion of  his  proprietary  remedies,  and  so  knew  some- 
thing of  the  principles  of  Cream  of  Tartar  and  Soda, 
and  from  these  he  made  the  first  baking  powder.  As 
soon  as  he  was  satisfied  that  his  own  preparation  was 
practical  he  added  it  to  his  stock,  and  this  was  the 
beginning  of  the  baking-powder  business. 

So  instantaneously  successful  was  the  new  prep- 
aration that  the  maker  began  to  realize  that  it  was 
worth  while  exploiting  it  on  a  larger  scale.  He  knew 
something  of  advertising  and  the  wonderful  results 
obtained  by  it,  but  he  had  very  little  money.  He  went 
to  a  friend  of  his,  a  banker  at  Waukegan,  Illinois, 
and  asked  him  to  buy  a  half  interest  in  the  baking 
powder,  and  the  deal  was  made.  Headquarters  were 
established  in  Chicago,  and  the  first  baking-powder 
advertising  was  begun.  After  the  business  was  final- 
ly established  Price  bought  out  his  partner's  inter- 
est for  a  sum  which  is  reported  to  have  been  a  million 
dollars. 

Just  as  soon  as  it  was  proven  that  the  baking-pow- 
der idea  was  a  success,  imitations  sprang  up  imme- 
diately. It  was  a  very  simple  matter  to  analyze 
Doctor  Price's  baking  powder  and  imitate  it,  but  al- 
though many  baking  powders  were  made,  only  one 
became  a  competitor  in  advertising.  This  was  known 
as  Hoagland's.  Hoagland  owned  a  drug  store  in  Fort 
Wayne,  Indiana,  and  at  first  made  baking  powder 
10 


128  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

for  Doctor  Price;  so  it  was  very  easy  to  secure  the 
formula.  Hoagland  was  even  more  impressed  with 
the  possibilities  of  advertising  than  Doctor  Price,  and 
devoted  every  cent  he  could  scrape  together  to  pub- 
licity. During  the  year  that  these  two  men  were 
fighting  each  other,  what  was  then  a  large  amount 
of  money  was  spent  in  newspaper  and  magazine 
publicity. 

Meanwhile,  two  men  named  Cleveland,  in  Albany, 
were  putting  up  a  baking  powder  and  had  just  begun 
to  advertise  it  in  a  small  way.  The  result  of  the 
fight  was  that  several  of  the  companies  changed  hands. 
The  Price  Company  secured  Hoagland's  powder,  and 
Hoagland  secured  the  Cleveland  powder.  Then  came 
one  of  the  most  aggressive  advertising  campaigns  in 
the  history  of  advertising.  Contrary  to  every  one's 
expectation,  neither  company  was  ruined,  and  the 
various  promoters  of  both  powders  retired  rich.  The 
final  result  has  been  that  the  two  leading  powders, 
Price  and  Cleveland,  have  been  absorbed  by  the  Royal 
in  the  twenty-million-dollar  company.  When  this  was 
effected  the  volume  of  advertising  shrunk  to  some  ex- 
tent, but  the  Royal  Company  finds  it  necessary  to 
maintain  a  certain  amount  of  good  publicity  all  the 
time. 

Behind  the  conservative,  strong,  convincing  ad- 
vertising of  Royal  Baking  Powder  which  is  appear- 
ing in  the  magazines  and  newspapers  to-day  is  this 
turbulent,  exciting,  convincing  advertising  history. 
Behind  each  and  every  national  general  advertiser 
there  is  a  long  history  of  success  and  failure,  of  a 
battle  against  competitors,  of  a  battle  against  poverty, 
for  these  men  were  engaged  in  demonstrating  that 


THE  GENERAL  ADVERTISER  129 

general  advertising  was  a  great  and  profitable  in- 
vestment. 

The  story  of  Mellin's  Food  is  another  typical 
illustration  of  the  way  in  which  a  national  adver- 
tiser is  made.  To-day  Mellin's  Food  uses  pages  in  all 
the  leading  magazines,  especially  those  going  to  homes 
and  women.  Its  characteristic  style  of  advertising  is 
to  show  a  photograph  of  a  real  child  which  has  been 
brought  up  on  Mellin's  Food,  to  give  its  name  and 
generally  a  testimonial  letter  from  the  mother  or 
father.  This  and  the  phrase,  "  We  are  advertised  by 
our  loving  friends,"  is  the  entire  advertising  of  this 
company,  which  has  been  exceedingly  successful. 
Thomas  Doliber,  President  and  Treasurer  of  the 
Doliber-Goodale  Company,  has  this  to  say  of  the  story 
of  Mellin's  Food  advertising: 

"  When  I  first  became  acquainted  with  Mellin's 
Food,  it  was  on  the  occasion  of  a  mother  coming  with 
her  almost  dying  baby  and  saying  that  she  had  used 
Mellin's  Food  in  England,  but  she  had  used  all  she 
had  brought  over  and  must  have  more  immediately. 
'  Cable  for  it,'  said  she,  and  I  did  so.  I  was  im- 
pressed with  her  earnestness ;  I  investigated ;  I  found 
that  Mellin's  Food  really  had  merit;  and  I  became 
interested  in  it.  I  thought  it  over  thoroughly,  and  I 
made  up  my  mind  that  I  would  investigate  further. 
Just  what  I  would  do  I  could  not.  I  must  first  con- 
sult my  senior  partner,  who  was  a  hundred  miles 
away  on  his  vacation.  Should  I  wait  until  he  re- 
turned ?  No,  I  had  made  up  my  mind,  and  why 
wait  ?  I  took  the  train  the  next  morning  and  went 
to  see  him,  not  knowing  how  soon  he  would  return. 
He  returned  that  very  morning.  Finding  I  had 


130  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

missed  him,  I  took  the  train  back,  and  went  imme- 
diately to  his  house,  and  at  night  talked  the  matter 
over  with  him,  and  told  him  what  I  felt  I  must  do. 
He  did  not  share  my  enthusiasm,  but  my  own  enthusi- 
asm was  not  chilled  by  his  lack  of  it.  This  was  more 
than  twenty  years  ago. 

'*  The  result  of  this  interview  necessitated  a  jour- 
ney abroad,  which  I  immediately  undertook  for  the 
purpose  of  introducing  Mellin's  Food  in  America. 
There  have  been  many  obstacles  and  privations  and 
drawbacks,  but  in  all  the  time  that  I  have  been  con- 
nected with  this  enterprise,  I  never  lost  my  courage 
but  once,  and  that  was  for  only  a  few  hours,  when 
the  machinery,  from  which  much  was  expected,  and 
which  had  been  set  up  at  a  large  expenditure  of  time 
and  money  and  thought,  was  found  to  be  ineffectual, 
and  had  to  be  pulled  to  pieces  and  made  over.  I 
never  had  any  doubt  of  ultimate  success — in  fact, 
I  might  better  say  that  I  never  thought  of  success.  I 
put  my  hand  to  the  plow,  and  I  believe  I  can  say 
I  have  never  looked  back,"  and  from  the  beginning, 
down  to  the  present  moment,  there  has  never  been 
any  cessation  of  energy  in  pushing  it  forward. 

"  It  required  an  outlay  of  more  than  $25,000  be- 
fore the  first  bottle  of  Mellin's  Food  was  made,  and 
to  me  at  that  time  it  was  a  large  sum.  All  the  money 
I  had,  and  all  I  could  get  hold  of,  went  into  Mellin's 
Food.  I  gave  up  a  comfortable  residence  in  the  city 
and  moved  to  a  small  house  in  the  suburbs.  Once 
—I  say  it  with  a  blush — I  offered  to  transfer  the  life- 
insurance  policy,  which  had  been  made  for  the  benefit 
of  my  family,  to  an  advertising  agency  as  security 
for  further  newspaper  advertising 


THE  GENERAL  ADVERTISER       131 

"  As  for  the  kind  of  advertising  that  has  done 
the  most  good,  if  I  knew  what  it  was,  1  would  be 
glad  to  tell  it,  but  I  do  not  know.  I  have  not  forgot- 
ten that  the  very  first  effort  I  made  to  advertise 
Mellin's  Food  was  in  the  form  of  a  small  three-  or 
four-line  reading  notice  which  I  put  in  the  Boston 
Transcript.  That  notice  was  read  by  a  lady  visiting 
at  the  White  Mountains.  She  at  once  wrote  to  ask  me 
if  I  knew  of  my  own  knowledge,  whether  this  was  a 
good  article :  not  what  the  manufacturers  said  about 
it,  but  could  I  personally  say  that  it  was  good.  I 
replied  that  I  could,  of  my  own  knowledge,  say  that 
it  was  a  good  article.  She  had  a  very  sick  child.  The 
Mellin's  Food  was  sent  to  her,  and  she  administered 
it  to  the  child,  and  the  child  immediately  began  to 
recover.  She  wrote  for  more  Mellin's  Food;  she 
wrote  a  most  warm  and  appreciative  letter.  I  asked 
her  if  I  might  have  permission  to  publish  it;  she 
gave  the  permission,  and  I  published  it.  She  was  a 
lady  prominent  in  society  in  Philadelphia,  and  the 
publication  of  her  letter  did  a  great  deal  of  good. 

"  One  day  I  called  upon  Mr.  Mies,  the  advertis- 
ing agent,  and  told  him  that  I  had  seen  a  most  inter- 
esting letter  which  Miss  Gilder  had  written  from  New 
York.  She  was  then  writing  the  Brunswick  letters 
for  the  Boston  Saturday  Evening  Gazette.  She  used 
in  that  letter,  a  most  apt  expression,  one  that  I  have 
often  made  use  of  since,  that  Mellin's  Food  was  al- 
ready well  known,  but  that  '  there  were  always  new 
babies  and  new  invalids '  to  whom  it  must  be  made 
known.  Mr.  Niles  said  sarcastically,  '  I  suppose  you 
are  going  to  file  this  letter  away  and  do  nothing 
with  it  ? ' 


132  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

"  I  said,  '  No,  I  am  going  to  put  it  into  every 
prominent  paper  in  every  large  city  in  the  United 
States/  and  I  did  so,  and  the  result  was  distinctly  felt. 

"  I  have  said  that  I  could  not  tell  what  particular 
thing  has  helped  or  has  helped  the  most.  There  has 
never  been  a  moment,  sleeping  or  waking,  since  I 
started  this  enterprise,  that  I  have  not  thought  or 
dreamed  of  some  way  to  increase  it,  and  make  it  bet- 
ter known.  I  have  often  waked  up  in  the  night  with 
an  idea,  and  I  would  lie  awake  and  develop  that  idea 
in  my  mind.  I  soon  found  that  that  plan  was  endan- 
gering my 'health.  Then  I  would  have  a  block  of 
paper  and  a  pencil,  and  a  candle  and  matches  on  a 
chair  at  my  bedside.  If  I  waked  in  the  night,  as  I 
often  did,  with  an  idea  that  was  useful  about  the 
business,  I  would  immediately  get  up  and  note  it 
down.  This  would  enable  me  to  crystallize  that  idea 
and  keep  it  where  it  would  be  safe,  and  I  could  then 
go  back  to  bed  and  go  to  sleep. 

"  What  has  done  it  ?  It  has  been  newspaper  ad- 
vertising ;  it  has  been  the  giving  away  of  samples ;  it 
has  been  personally  visiting  sick  children ;  it  has  been 
corresponding  with  despairing  mothers;  it  has  been 
issuing  circulars  of  advice ;  and  it  has  been  every  other 
means  that  I  have  been  able  to  think  of;  but  what 
particular  one  has  done  it,  I  do  not  know. 

"  It  has  been  done  from  affection ;  I  may  truly 
say  it  has  been  done  with  love.  I  dearly  love  chil- 
dren, and  it  has  been,  and  is,  one  of  the  joys  of  my 
life  that  my  business  has  been  one  to  minister  to  the 
comfort  and  happiness  of  children.  That  it  has  done 
so,  I  know  partly  from  the  letters  that  have  come  to 
me.  They  have  been  a  source  of  delight  and  pleasure. 


THE  GENERAL  ADVERTISER  133 

They  have  come  unsolicited ;  they  have  come  in  large 
numbers  from  the  medical  profession ;  they  have  come 
from  all  ranks  of  society,  and  from  all  callings.  The 
Empress  of  Germany  consulted  her  Cabinet,  and  with 
their  advice  and  consent,  in  the  gratitude  of  her  heart, 
she  caused  a  letter  to  be  written  stating  that  her  sons, 
the  Royal  Princes  of  Germany,  had  been  successfully 
reared  on  Mellin's  Food.  This  was  impressive ;  I  ap- 
preciated it,  and  I  appreciate  as  well  the  illiterate 
letter  from  the  mother  in  humble  circumstances,  to 
whom  her  little  boy  is  as  dear  as  the  German  Princes 
are  to  the  Empress,  and  to  whom  the  writing  of  a  let- 
ter is  a  mighty  effort,  but  she  strikes  it  red  hot  from 
the  anvil  of  her  heart  because  she  must  express  her 
gratitude,  and  because  the  maternal  instinct  is  strong 
and  she  feels  she  must  help  other  mothers  who  may 
be  in  a  like  perplexity. 

"  Once  a  well-known  Episcopal  clergyman  of 
Massachusetts,  whose  testimony  is  unimpeachable, 
wrote  me  that  he  always  kept  in  his  study,  ready  at 
hand,  a  bottle  of  Mellin's  Food;  that  he  never  was 
called  to  baptize  a  dying  child  without  taking  along 
with  him  a  bottle  of  Mellin's  Food ;  that  he  always 
administered  it  to  the  child ;  and  that  it  has  been 
the  means  in  his  hands  of  saving  the  lives  of  many 
children."  * 

These  are  some  of  the  stories  that  lie  behind  the 
successes  of  the  general  advertiser.  They  are  a  few 
from  among  a  large  number.  They  show  as  clearly  as 
can  be  shown,  what  sort  of  men  are  general  advertis- 
ers, and  what  sort  of  products  they  market  by  adver- 
tising. Before  a  business  can  be  advertised  on  a  large 
1  From  Fowler's  Publicity. 


134  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

scale  it  must  possess  both  an  advertising  manager  and 
an  advertising  agency.  Not  every  large  advertiser 
possesses  an  advertising  manager,  but  in  any  case 
some  member  of  the  company  or  firm  must  decide 
questions  pertaining  to  advertising,  which  makes  him 
in  some  sense  the  advertising  manager.  Neither  does 
every  national  advertiser  work  through  an  agency,  but 
the  exceptions  are  rare,  and  are  becoming  rarer.  The 
next  two  chapters  will  treat  of  the  qualities  and  duties 
of  the  advertising  manager,  and  the  work  of  an  adver- 
tising agency. 


CHAPTEK  VII 

THE    ADVERTISING    MANAGER 

THE  advertising  man's  position  varies  in  income 
from  a  fifteen-dollar-a-week  writer  of  advertisements 
to  a  fifteen-thousand-dollar-a-year  manager.  Three 
different  fields  of  work  are  covered  by  the  general  ex- 
pression "  advertising  man."  He  may  be  an  advertis- 
ing manager,  an  advertising  agent  or  an  advertising 
solicitor. 

An  advertising  manager  is  the  man  employed  by 
a  manufacturing  company  and  by  many  large  retail 
stores  to  manage  its  advertising.  An  advertising 
agent  is  a  man  who  primarily  places  advertising  for 
his  client  in  magazines  and  newspapers,  in  street  cars 
and  upon  bill-boards.  In  the  modern  sense  he  does 
more  than  this:  he  prepares  the  advertising  and 
makes  all  the  plans  which  are  parts  of  an  advertising 
campaign.  He  cooperates  with  the  advertising  man- 
ager of  the  company  in  selling  the  articles  manufac- 
tured by  that  company.  An  advertising  solicitor  is 
the  representative  of  a  publication,  who  calls  upon 
advertisers  and  solicits  their  advertising.  Every 
newspaper  and  every  magazine  has  one  or  more  such 
representatives.  These  men  are  required  to  know  a 
good  deal  about  advertising.  The  more  they  know, 
the  better  they  succeed. 

Probably  the  most  interesting  of  these  fields  is 

135 


136  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

that  of  the  advertising  manager.  When  advertising 
work  is  talked  about  we  hear  of  the  advertising  man- 
ager and  of  the  advertisement  writer.  The  two  are 
often  confused,  but  there  should  be  a  sharp  distinc- 
tion. A  man  who  is  handling  the  advertising  of  any 
large  concern,  such  as  a  breakfast-food  company  or  a 
department  store,  generally  employs  one  or  more  writ- 
ers, just  as  he  hires  one  or  more  artists,  to  carry  out 
his  ideas.  Men  who  work  for  the  advertising  man- 
ager follow  the  policy  mapped  out  and  dictated  by 
him. 

It  is  a  great  qualification  in  advertising  work  to 
be  able  to  write  straightforward,  clean-cut,  forcible, 
common,  every-day  English,  but  this  is  not  absolutely 
essential.  Many  men  have  been  successful  as  adver- 
tising managers  who  were  not  good  writers  in  an  ad- 
vertising sense.  The  man  with  the  ability  and  the 
opportunity  to  manage  the  advertising  of  a  large  house 
seldom  has  the  time  to  write.  As  the  possibilities  of 
the  development  of  business  by  advertising  increase, 
the  position  of  the  advertising  man  is  becoming  more 
and  more  identical  with  that  of  the  sales  manager. 
The  modern  advertising  man  is  the  sales  manager 
with  an  enlarged  opportunity. 

The  advertising  man  who  locks  himself  in  his  own 
little  den  and  knows  nothing  of  what  the  business  is 
doing,  who  does  not  scrutinize  the  daily  or  weekly 
sales  sheets,  who  does  not  know  the  exact  state  of  the 
trade  in  any  given  part  of  the  country,  who  can  not 
instantly  locate  every  traveling  man,  and  who  does 
not  talk  with  these  men  when  they  are  in  the  office, 
and  hear  from  their  own  mouths  all  the  stories  that 
are  told  them  by  the  trade — such  an  advertising  man 


THE  ADVERTISING  MANAGER  137 

is  not  an  advertising  man  at  all ;  he  is  a  sort  of  special 
clerk,  whose  work  ranks  with  that  of  the  bookkeeper, 
stenographer,  collector,  or  credit  man,  in  other  de- 
partments— important  places  in  their  way,  but  not 
executive. 

The  advertising  manager  of  a  retail  store  is  an 
important  position,  but  this  particular  field  will  be 
treated  in  this  book  under  retail  advertising.  In  gen- 
eral advertising  the  advertising  manager  is  the  right- 
hand  man  of  the  general  advertiser. 

There  are  four  departments  in  a  big  manufactur- 
ing business  which  should  be  placed  upon  one  plane. 
The  first  is  executive,  represented  by  the  president; 
the  second  is  the  manufacturing,  or  the  production  of 
a  product  which  will  compete  with  similar  products 
manufactured  and  marketed  under  similar  conditions 
elsewhere ;  the  third  is  the  selling,  represented  by  the 
sales  agent  who  has  entire  charge  of  the  marketing 
of  the  product,  and  the  fourth  is  the  advertising,  the 
manager  of  which  combines  within  himself  the  quali- 
ties of  both  the  executive  and  the  sales  agent.  He 
will,  of  course,  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  manu- 
facturing, except  that  he  should  be  familiar  with  it 
from  beginning  to  end.  The  advertising  man  of  to- 
day must  have  executive  ability.  He  must  put  his 
own  plans  into  operation. 

When  a  large  manufacturing  house  hires  a  man 
to  take  care  of  its  advertising,  one  of  two  things  is 
true.  Either  the  man  is  competent,  in  which  case 
he  should  have  full  swing,  or  he  is  incompetent,  in 
which  case  he  should  be  discharged.  There  is  no 
middle  ground. 

Intelligent  clerks  in  an  office  are  often  useful  in 


138  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

advertising  work.  A  bright  girl  or  a  bright  boy  can 
look  after  a  "  follow-up  "  series,  can  send  out  form 
letters  at  the  right  time,  and  can  answer  a  large  list 
of  different  kinds  of  inquiries,  etc.,  resulting  from 
advertising.  All  this  is  clerical  and  routine  work. 
It  requires  intelligence,  but  not  special  training  in 
advertising. 

It  is  hard  to  find  combined  in  the  same  man  op- 
timism and  hard-headedness.  It  is  not  often  that  a 
sanguine  temperament,  vivid  imagination,  great  crea- 
tive power  and  the  other  qualities  which  go  more  or 
less  with  the  equipment  of  a  genius  are  found  joined 
to  a  cold,  shrewd,  calculating,  business-like  character. 
Yet  the  ideal  advertising  man  is  a  combination  of 
both. 

Seymour  Eaton,  founder  of  the  Booklovers  Li- 
brary, the  Tabard  Inn  Library  and  the  Tabard  Inn 
Company,  is  a  man  whose  plans  are  as  interesting 
as  they  have  been  profitable.  He  is  a  perfect  mine 
of  ideas  and  seefns  inexhaustible.  In  each  case  he 
has  done  the  impossible.  When  he  initiated  the  Book- 
lovers  Library,  he  planned  to  use  the  Congressional 
Library  as  a  nucleus.  Congress  was  amazed;  there 
was  no  precedent  for  doing  such  a  thing,  and  there- 
fore his  request  was  refused.  But  Seymour  Eaton 
was  not  a  man  who  went  by  precedents.  He  decided 
to  build  up  his  library  out  in  the  open  without  any 
material  and  without  any  capital.  He  went  to  the 
largest  advertising  agency  in  the  world  and  asked  its 
help.  That  agent  was  wary.  The  scheme  seemed  too 
visionary.  Another  advertising  agency  which  ac- 
cepted his  account  has  it  to-day,  and  it  is  one  of  the 
most  profitable  accounts  it  has. 


THE  ADVERTISING  MANAGER  139 

When  the  Booklovers  Library  was  paying  about 
two  hundred  thousand  dollars  a  year,  Mr.  Eaton 
started  the  Tabard  Inn  Library,  and  now  his  latest 
enterprise  is  the  Tabard  Inn  Company  which  will 
market  various  products  such  as  teas,  coffees  and  den- 
tifrices. As  a  third,  step  in  the  chain  these  various 
interests  have  been  united 'in  one  corporation  called 
the  Tabard  Inn  Company.  This  company  has  been 
incorporated  at  ten  million  dollars,  representing  the 
interests  built  up  entirely  with  the  good  ideas  and 
good  advertising  of  Seymour  Eaton.  Of  this  man  as 
an  advertising  manager,  Robert  Barr  says  in  the  Sat- 
urday Evening  Post : 

"  Seymour  Eaton  is  a  man  of  genius.  Last  year 
he  wrote  a  short  story  which  is  probably  the  strong- 
est piece  of  work  of  its  kind  that  has  been  produced 
this  decade.  This  was  done  at  odd  moments,  merely 
as  a  side  issue  and  for  recreation,  because  his  serious 
work  in  life  is  the  writing  of  advertisements.  His 
vast  business  is  managed  by  others,  under  his  general 
direction,  of  course,  for  the  advertising  department 
is  too  vital  to  be  trusted  to  any  one's  brain  but  his 
own.  He  paid  a  flying  visit  to  England  a  short  time 
since,  but,  being  a  very  busy  man,  could  not  spare 
more  than  a  week  or  thereabouts  for  Europe.  He 
seemed  to  think  that  as  the  world  was  created  in  six 
days  that  length  of  time  was  ample  to  see  a  very 
small  portion  of  it.  In  talking  about  the  matter  of 
publicity  he  said  to  me :  (  An  advertisement  should 
be  news  just  as  much  as  a  cable  despatch  from  the 
seat  of  war.7 

"  He  was  told  by  wiseacres  that  his  style  of  ad- 
vertising might  be  all  right  for  America,  but  it  was 


140  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

no  good  in  Great  Britain.  '  I  can't  argue  about  that/ 
said  Mr.  Eaton,  '  because  I  don't  know.  I  arrived 
yesterday,  and  I  sail  back  next  Tuesday,  but  in  the 
interval  I'll  find  out.7  '  You  may  ask  So-and-so,  and 
So-and-so/  said  the  wiseacres,  naming  prominent  men 
who  are  supposed  to  know.  t  I  sha'n't  trouble  them/ 
said  Mr.  Eaton ;  '  I'll  ask  the  British  public.'  There- 
upon he  tossed  off  an  advertisement  that  cost  him  $500 
to  print.  The  result  was  that  the  Post  Office  Depart- 
ment was  compelled  to  put  three  extra  postmen  on 
his  beat,  and  before  five  days  had  passed  more  than 
$6,000  in  cold  cash  had  poured  in  upon  him.  '  That's 
the  answer/  he  said.  '  The  old  country  isn't  dead  yet/ 
and  so  he  sailed  away  and  left  us." 

Such  a  man  can  not  manage  the  financial  details 
of  the  structure  which  he  is  able  to  rear,  nor  should 
he.  If  he  could,  he  would  lose  along  the  imaginative 
side,  the  side  which  brings  such  things  into  creation. 
He  needs  for  his  manager  a  man  who  can  not  see 
practically  an  inch  before  his  financial  face,  a  man 
to  whom  business  is  business,  who  has  the  ordinary 
training  of  the  ordinary,  successful  merchant,  book- 
keeper or  banker,  a  man  to  whom  financial  credit  is 
everything,  who  can  listen  unmoved  to  the  pleas  of 
debtors,  who  makes  of  his  collections  a  god,  and  who 
can  show  beautifully  arranged,  symmetrical  balance 
sheets  at  the  end  of  any  given  week.  The  man  who 
can  do  these  things  never  created  a  plan  which  dis- 
turbed the  commercial  world,  never  originated  a  new 
idea,  never  laid  out  a  successful  plan  of  advertising 
and  never  gave  birth  to  a  new  scheme. 

The  reason  it  is  so  hard  to  reach  the  great  manu- 
facturers of  to-day  is  because  the  men  with  the  ability 


The  Tea-drinking  Centre  of  Ihe  World 


1  .pent  fix  weeks  in  London  last  summer  ;  largely  it 
the  London  offices  of  The  Booklovers  Library.  ]  found 
that  the  library  had  the  afternoon  tea  habit  firmly  estab- 
lished. Work  stopped  at  four  o'clock.  Tea  was  served  to 
everyone,  from  the  packer*  in  the  basement  to  the  titled 
aristocracy  who  frequented  the  library  resting  and  reading 
rooms  and  whose  carriages  waited  on  Hanover  Street.  I 
called  it  torn-foolery  ;  a  waste  of  employe's  time  ;  and  1 
told  the  manager  so.  An  American  institution  should  be 
managed  on  American  lines.  But  in  a  week  I  changed  my 
mind,  and  in  two  weeks  I  had  the  tea  habit  fully  developed 
myself.  At  four  o'clock  thereafter  I  had  tea  served  in  my 
office  on  the  second  floor,  and  I  had  the  pleasure  almost 
daily  of  ordering  an  extra  cup  or  two  for  American  callers. 
Employers  of  labor  in  England  are  required  by  law  to  give 
their  "help"  this  extra  half-hour,  and  in  nearly  all  the  large 
concerns  the  tea  is  served  right  in  the  place  at  the  expense 
of  the  house.  There  isn't  anything  much  more  refreshing 
than  a  cup  of  tea  on  in  the  middle  of  the  afternoon  ;  that 
is,  if  the  tea  is  good  ;  and  there  is  no  place  in  the  world 
where  tea  it  so  uniformly  good  as  in  England.  Th» 
explains  why  we  asked  a  London  house  to  put  up  the 
Tlbvd  Inn  Tea;  the  largest  importers  and  acknowledged 
the  best  tea  Menders  in  Great  Britain.  I  am  told  (and  I 
believe  it)  that  the  three  blends  of  Tabard  Inn  Tea  are 
uniformly  the  best  teas  ever  shipped  by  this  house  to  the 
United  State*.  Americans  who  have  enjoyed  the  teas  of 
England  say  "we  never  get  anything  like  this  in  America." 
You  can  have  it  now  quite  as  good  as  the  best  in  England. 
The  Kmitkt'i  BlnJ  sells  for  $1.50  a  pound;  the  Prurta" 
BltnJ  for  *i.oo  ;  and  the  Clerk  •/  Oxfirfs  Bind  for  foe.. 
named  after  three  of  the  Canterbury  Pilgrims.  Packed  in 
half-pound  tins  and  sold  by  all  grocers  carrying  high- 
grade  good*.  Each  package  contains  a  little  booklet 
giving  directions  for  making.  For  tired  people,  people  who 
over-strain  in  one  way  and  another,  there  is  probably 
nothing  so  healthful  or  so  restful  a*  a  cup  of  good  tea. 
made  right  -and  served  right.  It  is  the  best  "between- 
inctl"  beverage  that  the  world  has  yet  discovered. 


TYPICAL  ADVERTISEMENT  OF  SEYMOUR  EATON  FROM  THE  TAB- 
ARD INN  NEWS.  NOTE  HOW  THE  SIGNATURE  IS  USED  TO 
GIVE  PERSONALITY.  THIS  APPEARS  IN  ALL  HIS  ADVERTISING. 

141 


142  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

to  make  these  businesses  what  they  are,  are  deficient 
in  imagination.  They  have  to  be  thus  deficient  in 
order  to  accomplish  what  they  have  done.  But  they 
need  an  outside  force  to  convince  them  that  there  are 
fields  of  commercial  supremacy  undreamed  of  by 
them.  They  have  attained  great  success  by  following 
a  worn  channel,  the  beaten  track.  They  have  done 
so  better  than  others,  but  still  have  made  the  conven- 
tional business  progress.  Advertising  wears  new 
channels,  treads  new  paths  and  brings  unconventional 
success.  It  is  the  advertising  manager  who  opens  to 
the  manufacturer  these  possibilities. 

According  to  statistics  recently  collected,  the  aver- 
age lawyer  earns  two  thousand  dollars  a  year ;  the  top- 
notch  lawyer  gets  two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand. 
The  average  architect  earns  twelve  hundred  dollars 
a  year ;  the  top-notch  man  two  hundred  thousand  dol- 
lars. The  average  physician  earns  fifteen  hundred 
dollars  a  year;  the  top-notch  man  one  hundred  and 
twenty-five  thousand  dollars.  Manifestly  the  men 
who  earn  the  highest  salaries  can  be  counted  on  the 
fingers  of  the  hand.  The  others  are  of  the  rank 
and  file. 

There  are  thousands  of  young  men  and  women  in 
this  country  earning  salaries  as  small  as  they  could 
earn  in  almost  any  class  of  commercial  work,  but  who 
are  classed  as  advertising  men  and  women.  They 
bear  the  same  relation  to  the  men  who  are  making 
advertising  history  that  the  draughtsman  in  the  office 
of  a  noted  architect  bears  to  the  senior  member  of  the 
firm.  A  great  many  of  them  will  never  get  any  fur- 
ther. Some  of  them  will,  however,  but  they  are  the 
men  who  appreciate  the  fact  that  the  ability  to  write 


THE  ADVERTISING  MANAGER  143 

is  only  a  small  part  of  the  equipment  of  the  competent 
advertising  man. 

A  great  many  exaggerated  rumors  about  the  sala- 
ries of  advertising  men  have  been  in  circulation.  Like 
all  new  pursuits,  advertising  has  suffered  from  the  en- 
thusiasm of  its  friends.  The  large  salaries  one  hears 
about  are  earned  by  men  of  unusual  ability  who  would 
earn  just  as  much  money  in  any  profession  or  busi- 
ness. Many  of  the  leading  advertising  managers  are 
directors  in  the  companies  whose  products  they  adver- 
tise and  share  in  the  earnings. 

Some  years  ago  the  advertising  press  became  quite 
excited  over  the  fact  that  the  advertising  manager 
of  a  certain  house  making  a  well-known  standard  pro- 
prietary remedy  received  $10,000  for  a  series  of  fifty- 
two,  four-inch  newspaper  advertisements.  Finally 
the  writer  in  question  made  public  the  statement  that 
even  if  he  did  receive  that  amount,  he  gave  half  of 
it  to  the  physician  who  gave  him  all  the  technical 
information  upon  which  these  advertisements  were 
based.  It  is  said  that  this  man  finally  secured  a  sal- 
ary of  $20,000  a  year  for  his  services  from  another 
large  medicine  house.  It  is  significant  that  to-day 
this  same  man  has  become  a  failure ;  he  owes  thou- 
sands of  dollars,  and  has  never  succeeded  in  getting 
on  his  feet  again. 

One  well-known  writer  of  business  literature,  the 
creator  of  the  Wanamaker  style  of  department-store 
advertising,  is  now  a  free-lance  writer  of  business 
announcements.  He  has  no  establishment  or  agency, 
uses  only  one  style  of  copy,  for  which  style  he  is 
famous,  and  it  is  said  that  he  receives  very  large  fees 
for  his  work.  After  the  Wanamaker  work,  his  great- 
11 


144  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

est  success  has  been  perhaps  a  series  of  magazine 
advertisements  for  the  Murphy  Varnish  Company, 
several  of  which  are  reproduced  in  this  book.  Not 
only  the  style  of  the  advertisement,  but  the  broad 
principles  upon  which  the  advertising  itself  was  con- 
structed, makes  this  campaign  a  noteworthy  one. 
The  public  does  not  buy  varnish.  It  buys  articles 
that  have  been  varnished — carriages,  pianos  and  fur- 
niture. This  company's  advertising  was  an  attempt 
to  teach  people  to  discriminate  in  the  matter  of  var- 
nish. It  became  so  successful  that  few  advertising 
men  now  realize  that  it  is  eight  years  since  they  have 
seen  a  Murphy  varnish  advertisement.  Besides  the 
Murphy  series,  this  same  writer  has  been  known  for 
the  Macbeth  lamp-chimney  series. 

Another  writer  of  advertisements  is  paid  $15,000 
a  year  by  a  doctor  who  advertises ;  but  the  average 
advertising  manager  earns  from  $3,500  to  $7,500, 
and  $10,000  is  exceptional.  The  chances  are  as  good 
as,  but  no  better  than,  in  other  professions.  To  be  a 
successful  advertising  manager,  a  man  should  possess 
certain  natural  qualities  and  have  had  a  certain  train- 
ing. First  of  all,  he  should  have  an  innate,  instinc- 
tive and  intuitive  knowledge  of  human  nature;  he 
should  know  how  people  think  and  feel  and  what  will 
reach  them.  Whether  he  knows  anything  about- psy- 
chology or  not,  he  should  understand  the  psychologi- 
cal processes — the  habits  of  thought  of  the  people. 
Then  he  should  know  all  about  the  magazines  and 
newspapers,  what  kind  of  people  they  reach,  how 
much  they  cost,  and  whether  the  price  is  a  fair  one. 
He  must  know  all  about  street-car  advertising  and 
those  who  handle  it ;  about  the  price  for  bill-posting 


THE    BEST   GOODS 

means  simply  the  goods  most  perfectly 
adapted  to  their  use.  If  you  wrote  your 
tailor  to  make  up  a  suit  of  clothes,  on 
your  measure,  of  his  BEST  CLOTH,  he 
would  not  know  what  to  do.  He  has  a 
dozen  cloths  that  are  best  for  a  dozen 
uses,  but  you  must  explain — street  suit? 
dress  suit?  hunting  suit?  bathing  suit? 
It  makes  a  difference.  Not  more  differ- 
ence than  the  use  to  which  you  will 
put  varnish.  If  you  wrote  us  for  a  can 
or  a  car-load  of  our  BEST  VARNISH,  we 
should  be  as  helpless  as  the  tailor.  What 
is  it  for?  That  is  the  first  question  to 
settle.  A  varnish  that  is  perfectly  adapted 
to  one  use,  may  be  utterly  worthless  for 
some  other  use.  Each  varnish  is  made  for 
some  particular  use,  as  each  cloth  is. 

MURPHY  VARNISH  Co. 

Head  Office:.  Newark,  N.  J. 

Other  Offices:  Boston,  Cleveland,  St  Louis,  and  Chicago. 

Factories :   Newark  and  Chicago. 

A  "POWERS"    MAGAZINE   ADVERTISEMENT. 


145 


146  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

and  painted  signs ;  how  to  distribute  plates  for  print- 
ing advertising  in  thousands  of  newspapers  at  once, 
so  as  to  have  them  all  appear  on  a  given  day ;  be  able 
to  interview  the  manufacturers  and  others  who  man- 
age big  businesses  and  find  out  their  strong  talking 
points,  and  be  able  to  suggest  a  plan  for  advertising 
any  kind  of  goods  that  can  be  advertised. 

An  advertising  manager  must  be  a  man  who  can 
combine  business  and  advertising  instincts.  Such  a 
man,  if  he  is  the  ideal  man,  should  be  taken  into  the 
inmost  counsels  of  his  company.  He  should  be  closely 
associated  with  the  sales  manager,  or  he  should  be  the 
sales  manager.  He  should  outline  the  policy  that  he 
proposes  to  follow,  and  he  should  lay  that  plan  before 
the  president  or  the  board  of  directors  or  whomever 
has  the  veto  power.  After  the  general  policy  is  ac- 
cepted, it  is  the  advertising  manager's  business  to 
carry  it  out  without  delay  or  hindrance.  He  contracts 
with  a  reputable  advertising  agency  for  the  placing 
of  his  advertising.  He  arranges  with  the  bill-posting 
and  street-car  advertising  companies  for  mural  adver- 
tising. He  or  his  assistants  buy  printing,  engraving, 
electrotyping,  lithographing  and  other  mechanical 
supplies.  He  employs  designers  to  draw  pictures,  and 
writers  to  prepare  "  copy."  He  deals  with  concerns 
which  prepare  advertising  plates,  and  which  distrib- 
ute, handle,  display  or  carry  advertising.  It  will 
be  his  business  to  pass  on  the  plan,  decide  if  it  is 
good,  get  in  touch  with  the  people  who  can  carry  it 
out,  and  determine  whether  the  price  to  be  paid  is  a 
fair  one.  He  will  know  about  his  product,  how  it  is 
made,  and  he  will  know  especially  how  it  is  sold.  He 
will  be  familiar  with  the  machinery  by  which  that 


THE  ADVERTISING  MANAGER  147 

product  is  handled  from  the  time  when  it  leaves  the 
plant  all  the  way  forward  through  the  commission 
man,  wholesaler,  jobber,  drummer  and  retailer,  to  the 
consumer. 

For  some  reason  the  mere  ability  to  express  one- 
self in  words  has  come  to  be  believed  to  be  the  leading 
qualification  of  an  advertising  man.  This  is  un- 
doubtedly due  to  the  fact  that  lately  the  ranks  of  ad- 
vertising men  have  been  recruited  from  the  ranks  of 
newspaper  and  other  writers.  Of  course,  the  reaction 
was  bound  to  come,  and  it  has  come.  The  advertis- 
ing man  of  the  future  will  not  necessarily  be  a  writing 
man  at  all,  but  will  be  a  man  who  will  know  where  to 
buy  his  writing,  just  as  he  now  buys  his  designs. 
The  advertising  man  of  the  immediate  future  and 
even  of  the  present  is  a  salesman.  Only  the  other 
day  a  large  concern  was  looking  for  several  advertis- 
ing men.  What  it  wanted  was  not  a  man  who  could 
write  and  design  so  much  as  a  man  who  could  sell 
goods — a  man  who  could  cooperate  with  the  sales 
manager  of  the  business,  who  could  dictate  a  good 
selling  plan  and  put  it  into  operation.  Such  a  man 
was  at  liberty  to  buy  copy  and  designs  wherever  he 
could  buy  them  best.  Even  if  the  advertising  man 
has  the  ability  to  write  exceptionally  well,  it  doesn't 
mean  that  he  should  do  the  writing — merely  that  he 
should  be  able  to  judge  its  value. 

Mere  writing  is  a  small  part  of  the  work  of  the 
successful  advertising  man,  because  it  is  so  much  more 
important  for  him  to  have  something  to  write.  A 
glance  at  the  advertising  in  any  leading  magazine  will 
show  that  it  is  deficient  in  the  use  of  words.  We  see 
many  striking  and  unusual  designs  but  we  see  very 


148  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

few  well-written  advertisements.  Usually  when  we 
do  see  a  well-written  advertisement,  it  is  in  type  with- 
out any  design.  In  fact,  one  falls  naturally  into  the 
habit  of  reading  the  advertisements  which  are  without 
designs  under  the  impression  that  the  "  copy  "  was 
unusually  good,  and  it  generally  proves  to  be  so. 
Take,  for  instance,  the  Macbeth  lamp-chimney  adver- 
tisements: these  have  had  a  persistent  individuality. 

A  young  man  who  feels  prepared  to  take  up 
advertising  work  should  stop  and  ask  himself  if  he 
has  any  other  qualification  for  becoming  an  adver- 
tising man  than  the  desire  to  be  one ;  if  he  is  depend- 
ing merely  upon  an  ability  to  write,  either  actual  or 
alleged ;  if  he  believes  he  can  begin  the  work  of  an 
advertising  man  with  any  less  rigorous  preparation 
for  it  than  he  should  need  to  begin  the  profession  of 
a  doctor,  lawyer  or  architect ;  if  he  knows  that  it  takes 
four  years  at  a  professional  school  for  a  lawyer,  doc- 
tor or  architect  to  become  competent,  to  make  merely 
a  beginning,  and  that  even  then  the  real  training  of 
such  a  professional  man  comes  within  the  first  two 
or  three  years  of  his  professional  life  ?  It  takes  seven 
years  to  give  a  professional  man  sufficient  training  to 
command  a  salary  large  enough  to  live  upon.  .  Has 
the  young  man  in  question  had  seven  years  of  train- 
ing ?  Has  he  sold  goods  by  means  of  advertising  for 
a  period  covering  seven  years  ?  Has  he  actually  spent 
the  money  and  seen  the  results  ? 

No  man  is  an  advertising  man  who  has  merely  sat 
in  an  office,  prepared  "  copy  "  and  sent  it  out.  When 
he  has  been  there  long  enough  to  see  the  results  of  that 
"  copy  "  coming  back,  when  he  has  been  around  the 
circle  a  good  many  times,  and  has  made  a  good  many 


THE  ADVERTISING  MANAGER  149 

expensive  mistakes,  learned  something  from  them  and 
profited  by  them,  then  he  begins  to  be  qualified  to 
spend  other  people's  money  with  the  idea  of  getting 
results.  Even  then  the  most  he  can  do  is  simply  to 
watch  each  campaign  for  its  own  symptoms  and  its 
own  development. 

No  matter  how  many  cases  a  lawyer  has  won,  he 
has  no  guarantee  that  he  can  win  any  given  case  in  the 
future.  ~No  matter  how  many  times  a  doctor  has 
performed  an  operation  for  appendicitis,  he  can  not 
say  with  certainty  any  time  that  any  given  operation 
will  prove  successful.  No  matter  how  much  experi- 
ence the  advertising  man  has  had,  every  new  adver- 
tising campaign  he  begins  is  to  some  extent  experi- 
mental. Of  course,  it  gets  less  and  less  experimental 
as  he  adds  to  the  list  of  things  that  he  knows.  The 
successful  lawyer  and  the  successful  doctor  have  a 
certain  experience  upon  which  they  can  always  count. 
They  at  least  can  eliminate  a  larger  number  of  un- 
certainties than  the  beginner.  That  is  all  that  the 
best  advertising  man  can  do. 

The  reason  why  there  have  been  so  many  incom- 
petent advertising  men  is  because  the  business  man 
who  pays  for  the  advertising  is  no  better  judge  of  the 
work  from  the  start  than  the  advertising  man  him- 
self. The  business  man  makes  two  mistakes,  or 
rather,  he  makes  one  of  two  mistakes.  He  either  se- 
lects a  man  who  is  able  to  do  his  advertising  success- 
fully, and  then  refuses  to  let  him  do  it,  or  he  selects 
a  man  who  is  incompetent  and  gives  him  the  entire 
responsibility. 

Even  now  to  a  great  many  men  who  are  advertis- 
ing, or  who  should  advertise,  advertising  is  more  or 


150  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

less  of  a  mystery,  as  much  of  a  mystery  as  some  of  the 
methods  of  doctors,  but  this  mystery  is  being  dis- 
sipated just  as  it  is  being  dissipated  in  other  profes- 
sions. The  time  will  come  when  no  doctor  will  write 
a  prescription  in  Latin ;  when  a  lawyer's  brief  or  other 
legal  paper  will  be  written  in  the  language  of  the 
people.  It  is  no  longer  necessary  for  the  professions 
to  surround  themselves  with  this  haze  of  mystery  as 
if  some  incantation  were  being  performed.  The  com- 
mon citizen  is  learning  something  about  the  laws  of 
health  and  the  laws  of  his  country  every  day.  As  he 
learns  more,  the  profession  of  a  lawyer  or  doctor  will 
become  more  practically  useful,  but  at  the  same  time 
less  mysterious.  In  the  same  way  the  principles  of 
advertising  are  going  to  be  better  known  and,  there- 
fore, the  advertising  that  is  done  hereafter  is  going 
to  be  more  effective. 

The  work  of  an  advertising  man  will  be  no  more 
mysterious  to  those  who  have  businesses  to  advertise 
than  the  work  of  a  bookkeeper,  cashier  or  sales  man- 
ager. Then  the  man  who  really  can  do  the  work  will 
do  it,  but  it  will  be  easier  to  eliminate  the  class  of 
writer  who  is  merely  a  man  who  has  failed  at  some 
other  work,  who  is  discontented  with  the  work  he  is 
doing,  or  who  thinks  that  advertising  work  is  a  short, 
easy  path  to  making  money.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the 
successful  advertising  man  works  as  hard  as,  if  not 
harder  than,  men  in  any  other  professions. 

It  is  probably  no  more  true  of  an  advertising  man 
than  it  is  of  any  successful  professional  man,  that  he 
is  born  rather  than  made.  Inherent  and  innate  abil- 
ity counts  in  any  profession,  and,  of  course,  it  counts 
equally  as  much  in  advertising.  On  the  other  hand, 


THE  ADVERTISING  MANAGER  151 

it  seems  impossible  that  correspondence  schools  of  ad- 
vertising could  ever  turn  out  any  great  number  of 
successful  advertising  men.  It  is  not  expected  of  cor- 
respondence schools,  nor  for  that  matter  of  schools  of 
mining  engineering,  civil  engineering  or  design,  to 
turn  out  any  great  number  of  successful  mining  en- 
gineers, civil  engineers  or  designers.  The  most  that 
the  great  majority  of  such  students  can  hope  to  do  is 
to  secure  positions  at  the  foot  of  the  ladder  in  these 
professions.  Those  who  have  ability  will  climb  to 
the  higher  places. 

The  most  that  can  be  expected  of  a  correspondence 
school  of  advertising  is  that  it  will  give  to  the  most 
receptive  of  its  students  an  inkling  of  this  work,  so 
that  they  can  secure  positions  at  the  foot  of  the  ad- 
vertising ladder  and  then  work  up  in  the  same  way. 
It  is  true,  as  the  advertising  school  prospectus  claims, 
that  there  are  a  great  many  positions  open  for  adver- 
tising men  to-day.  Every  agency  is  looking  for  a 
man  who  can  get  the  business  of  advertisers,  and  to 
get  such  business  in  this  day  and  age  presupposes 
knowledge  of  advertising  as  it  is  done.  The  same 
agencies  want  men  to  prepare  advertising  matter  be- 
ginning with  the  product  itself  and  its  method  of  sell- 
ing, and  working  through  from  this  foundation,  to 
the  advertising  of  it  in  the  magazines  and  newspapers 
which  are  the  selling  force. 

The  magazines  and  newspapers  are  looking  for 
solicitors  who  combine  the  business-getting  instinct 
with  a  knowledge  of  the  construction  of  advertise- 
ments. The  solicitor  who  can  talk  to  the  customer 
about  his  advertising  problem  intelligently,  and  who 
can  make  a  pertinent  suggestion  about  the  way  in 


152  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

which  the  advertising  should  be  written,  has  a  better 
chance  of  getting  the  business  ultimately,  than  the 
man  who  is  a  solicitor  pure  and  simple. 

By  far  the  most  attractive  position  of  all  is  that 
of  the  advertising  manager  of  a  manufacturing  plant. 
Only  a  few  such  companies  are  advertisers  and  hence 
only  a  few  such  positions  are  now  being  filled.  It 
is  undoubtedly  true  that  not  only  will  a  great  many 
more  plants  in  lines  already  being  advertised  avail 
themselves  of  this  method  of  getting  business,  but 
whole  new  departments  of  manufacture  never  before 
considered  to  be  advertisers  are  going  to  be  added  to 
this  list,  and  each  one  of  these  will  require  the  ser- 
vices of  a  man  capable  of  engineering  the  possibili- 
ties of  that  company  from  an  advertising  point  of 
view,  and  of  constructing  the  advertising  matter  in 
preparation  for  such  a  possibility. 

The  best  way  to  present  a  true  picture  of  the  ad- 
vertising manager's  work  is  to  suppose  or  describe 
this  method  in  connection  with  some  mythical  com- 
pany manufacturing  a  product  which  can  be  sold  over 
the  entire  country,  and  which  can  utilize  all  methods 
of  publicity. 

It  would  be  necessary  for  the  successful  adver- 
tising manager  to  know,  first,  the  exact  possibilities 
of  the  product,  to  know  just  how  much  was  being  sold 
and  how  distributed;  the  price  to  the  jobber  and  to 
the  consumer ;  the  number  of  traveling  men  and  the 
territory  each  covered;  the  number  of  companies 
manufacturing  a  similar  or  competing  article,  and  the 
exact  output  of  their  factories.  He  would  study  every 
bit  of  advertising  used  by  competitors;  he  would  be 
personally  acquainted  with  every  traveling  man  and 


THE  ADVERTISING  MANAGER  153 

would  know  the  exact  resources  of  his  trade,  as  well 
as  the  standing  of  the  house  itself  in  the  trade. 

Some  large  advertisers  ride  roughshod  over  the 
feelings  of  the  trade  which  handles  their  goods.  They 
go  on  the  theory  that  if  their  advertising  is  good 
enough,  they  can  compel  the  dealer  to  sell  their  goods. 
This  is  true,  but  a  certain  amount  of  friction  must  be 
overcome  if  the  trade  is  unfriendly,  and  friction  is 
always  lost  power. 

As  an  instance  of  this,  a  happening  in  the  break- 
fast-food trade  a  short  time  ago  is  pertinent.  Two 
of  the  largest  grocery  houses  in  New  York  City  de- 
cided not  to  carry  a  certain  food.  The  manufacturer 
of  this  food  was  notoriously  inconsiderate  in  his  treat- 
ment of  the  trade,  and  the  trade  was  notoriously  un- 
friendly toward  him.  These  two  grocery  concerns 
had  a  number  of  branch  stores  and  controlled  between 
them  the  largest  part  of  the  high-grade  trade  in  New 
York  City.  So  they  decided  to  combine  in  refusing 
to  handle  this  breakfast  food  and  instead  would  force 
a  product  of  their  own. 

For  three  months  all  inquiries  for  the  rejected 
food  were  "  turned  down  "  by  the  clerks,  but  at  the 
end  of  that  time  public  opinion  became  so  strong  that 
the  two  houses  took  the  food  back  as  one  of  their  staple 
products.  In  a  way  this  seemed  a  triumph  for  the  ad- 
vertiser, and  it  was,  since  it  proved  that  a  large  con- 
cern can  not  stand  in  the  way  of  public  opinion  cre- 
ated by  successful  advertising.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  advertiser  lost  the  trade  of  two  large  chains  of 
stores  for  three  months,  and  this  must  have  amounted 
to  a  considerable  sum. 

As  soon  as  the  advertising  manager  has  completed 


154  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

his  study  of  business  conditions,  he  prepares  a  plan 
which  includes  a  certain  amount  of  magazine  and 
newspaper  advertising,  street-car  cards  and  bill-boards. 
In  addition  to  this  certain  sums  of  money  will  be 
devoted  to  schemes  for  house-to-house  distribution, 
either  of  printed  matter  or  of  the  goods ;  for  a  public 
demonstration  in  the  department  stores  or  other  places 
where  purchasers  assemble ;  for  prize  offers  of  various 
kinds,  beginning  with  the  well-worn  and  effective 
plan  of  offering  presents  for  a  certain  number  of  cou- 
pons concealed  in  the  package  or  cut  from  box  fronts 
and  labels,  and  working  up  to  the  modern  idea  of 
concealing  separate  letters  spelling  the  name  of  the 
article  in  the  different  cartons  and  offering  prizes  for 
complete  words  spelled  by  these  letters.  These  things 
belong  to  the  advertising  manager's  field  and  the  num- 
ber of  such  plans  is  infinite. 

Having  decided  upon  the  avenues  through  which 
the  advertising  appropriation  shall  be  expended,  the 
advertising  manager  apportions  the  money  among  the 
different  mediums,  and  finally  makes  a  complete  list 
of  all  the  publications  and  other  mediums  that  will  be 
used,  and  the  cost  of  each.  In  making  out  such  a  list, 
he  is  helped  by  the  various  agencies  which  handle 
the  advertising.  For  instance,  his  regular  advertis- 
ing agency  will  prepare  an  estimate  for  the  placing 
of  the  magazine  and  newspaper  advertising.  In  the 
case  of  a  company  employing  its  own  advertising  man- 
ager, the  latter  usually  prepares  his  own  copy  and 
designs,  often  cooperating  with  the  agent  to  get  the 
best  results. 

Some  agencies  handle  bill-board  advertising  also, 
but  usually  the  advertising  manager  deals  directly 


THE  ADVERTISING  MANAGER  155 

with  the  bill-poster's  organization  through  some  one 
of  its  twelve  created  agencies.  A  list  of  the  stands, 
of  their  size,^  number  of  sheets,  and  cost  is  made. 
Street-car  advertising  is  handled  in  the  same  way, 
through  concerns  which  represent  the  different  parts 
of  the  country.  Usually  contracts  are  made  with  con- 
cerns which  paint  permanent  signs.  The  whole  thing, 
when  added  together,  representing  the  covering  of  the 
whole  country  thoroughly,  means  an  appropriation  of 
anywhere  from  $150,000  to  $750,000. 

After  the  plan  has  been  completed  and  the  appro- 
priation made,  the  matter  is  generally  submitted  to 
the  company's  president  or  whoever  has  the  veto 
power,  and  being  approved,  the  advertising  manager 
or  the  agency  directs  writers  and  artists  to  prepare 
matter  in  keeping  with  the  settled  policy. 

The  methods  are  as  different  as  the  articles  ad- 
vertised.  A  great  number  of  sessions  are  required  on 
the  part  of  all  interested  in  order  to  pass  on  the  vari- 
ous phases  of  the  advertising,  its  policy,  and  its  style 
—whether  or  not  it  will  be  illustrated,  and  if  illus- 
trated, whether  or  not  certain  characters  should  be 
created  that  can  be  used  for  all  the  advertising; 
whether  a  vaudeville  idea  should  be  used,  or  straight, 
sound  reasoning;  whether  preferred  and  special  posi- 
tions shall  be  paid  for  in  the  magazines  and  news- 
papers, and  other  questions  of  a  most  subtle  and  in- 
definable character,  but  still  questions  which  must  be 
decided  one  way  or  the  other,  and  upon  which  decision 
really  rests  the  success  of  the  advertising. 

All  of  these  matters  being  settled,  the  "  copy  "  is 
prepared  and  it  is  generally  the  work  of  the  agency 
to  put  it  into  form  to  be  sent  to  the  magazines.  The 


156  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

designs  at  least  must  be  engraved.  The  best  agencies 
and  advertising  managers  prefer  to  set  up  their  own 
type,  sending  afterward  to  the  publications  the  ad- 
vertisement all  ready  to  print. 

For  newspaper  work  there  exist  complete  organi- 
zations to  attend  to  the  entire  work  of  duplicat- 
ing the  different  advertisements  and  distributing  the 
plates  to  the  twenty-three  thousand  newspapers  of  the 
country.  It  is  optional  whether  the  checking  of  ad- 
vertisements shall  be  done  by  the  agency  which  placed 
the  advertising,  or  whether  it  shall  be  checked  in  the 
office  of  the  advertiser.  Many  advertising  concerns 
have  a  complete  force  of  their  own  and  keep  the  same 
publications  on  file  to  check  up  the  bills  of  the  agency. 
Some  national  advertisers  place  their  magazine  ad- 
vertising through  an  agency,  and  their  newspaper 
advertising  direct.  In  many  cases  the  advertiser  can 
get  better  prices  in  the  newspapers  than  the  agency 
can  get  for  him. 

The  advertising  manager  must  see  to  it  that  the 
traveling  men  of  his  company  are  kept  carefully 
posted  on  the  progress  of  the  advertising.  They  are 
supplied  with  copies  of  all  the  magazines  and  news- 
paper advertisements  and  they  are  informed  in  what 
cities  he  will  find  street-car  and  bill-board  advertising. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  traveling  man  is  the  best  source 
of  information  for  the  advertising  manager,  as  to 
whether  bill-board  and  street-car  contracts  appear  to 
have  been  well  carried  out,  of  the  state  of  the  trade  in 
regard  to  the  article  which  he  sells,  of  the  progress  of 
competitors'  articles  in  the  same  town,  and  of  the 
advertising  they  are  f  doing. 

The  modern  advertising  manager  has  in  his  office, 


THE  ADVERTISING  MANAGER  157 

a  complete  system  for  keeping  his  hand  upon  the  pulse 
of  the  commercial  world  as  it  affects  his  product.  He 
will  have  a  complete  set  of  maps  mounted  in  a  cabinet 
— a  map  of  each  state  or  part  of  a  state,  according 
to  the  minuteness  of  the  country  covered.  He  will 
have  a  set  of  colored  tacks  which  can  be  inserted  in 
different  towns,  villages  or  cities  on  these  maps.  For 
instance,  a  blue-headed  tack  will  stand  for  newspaper 
advertising  in  a  certain  town,  a  red-headed  tack  for 
street  cars,  and  a  black-headed  tack  for  bill-boards. 
He  will  then  have  tacks  of  different  shape  and 
color  to  represent  his  traveling  men,  which  will  be 
changed  daily  by  his  assistant,  so  that  he  can  see  at 
a  glance  just  where  all  the  travelers  are  on  a  given 
morning. 

Suppose  he  finds  at  his  office  on  that  given  morn- 
ing, a  telegram  from  a  traveling  man  announcing  that 
a  leading  competitor  has  increased  his  advertising  in 
a  certain  town,  and  in  consequence  the  competing  ar- 
ticle is  gaining  ground.  The  advertising  manager, 
like  a  general  commanding  a  campaign,  as  soon  as 
possible  increases  the  size  of  space  he  is  using  in  the 
local  newspapers  where  the  competing  article  is  being 
pushed.  He  will  contract  for  more  space  in  the  street 
cars,  and  in  other  ways  strengthen  their  showing  in 
that  town,  or  he  may  send  to  the  traveling  man  or 
to  the  trade  in  that  town,  a  special  offer  or  induce- 
ment to  strengthen  the  pushing  of  the  article.  Often 
this  must  be  done  simultaneously  in  several  parts  of 
the  country. 

The  advertising  man  must  be  a  man  of  resources 
in  order  to  prepare  plans  and  carry  them  out,  and 
he  must  be  ready  to  act  in  all  sorts  of  emergencies 


158  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

which  arise  in  conducting  any  national  campaign, 
especially  where  competition  is  strong. 

Neither  the  advertising  manager  nor  the  travel- 
ing man  of  the  company  can  really  check  up  all  the 
street-car  cards  or  bill-boards.  Perfect  verification 
of  these  is  hard.  Photographic  vouchers  are  used  for 
bill-boards  and  painted  signs.  As  a  rule,  all  such  con- 
tracts are  honestly  carried  out,  but  the  faithfulness 
of  the  different  bill-posters  and  the  men  handling  the 
chain  of  street-car  cards  must  be  relied  upon. 

The  good  advertising  manager  travels  over  the 
country  himself  as  frequently  as  possible  and  notes 
not  only  the  effect  of  his  own  advertising,  but  also 
that  of  competitors  and  of  other  advertisers  as  well. 
Advertisers  have  attained  success  in  so  many  ways 
that  no  outline,  even  a  typical  one,  will  fairly  repre- 
sent this  subject. 

The  character  of  Sunny  Jim  was  established  as 
an  advertising  character  through  the  advertising  of 
Force.  It  has  never  been  settled  satisfactorily  in  any- 
body's mind  whether  the  creation  of  Sunny  Jim  was 
or  was  not  a  good  advertising  feat;  whether  Sunny 
Jim  advertised  Force  or  whether  Force  advertised 
Sunny  Jim.  Still,  the  inception  of  this  character  is 
of  considerable  interest  to  advertising  men,  and  it  has 
undoubtedly  obtained  wider  publicity  than  any  other 
one  character  in  advertising. 

The  original  Sunny  Jim  jingle  was  written  by  a 
young  woman  in  New  York  City  who  had  done  some 
rambling  newspaper  work.  Another  young  girl,  a 
friend  of  hers,  drew  the  first  two  pictures  of  Jim 
Dumps  and  Sunny  Jim.  This  first  verse,  while  by 
no  means  faultless  metrically,  and  while  not  so  good 


THE  ADVERTISING  MANAGER  159 

as  subsequent  ones,  really  established  the  form  and 
style  of  the  succeeding  verses. 

The  writer  and  artist  sold  their  inception  to  Will- 
iam B.  Hunter,  who  was  then  advertising  manager  of 
the  Force  Food  Company.  Mr.  Hunter  bought  the 
idea  without  any  definite  intention  as  to  its  use.  Af- 
terward, it  occurred  to  him  that  a  series  might  be 
made  of  these  jingles  for  street-car  use.  He  called 
upon  the  original  writer  to  furnish  twelve  more  verses 
which  she  did.  The  artist,  however,  did  not  care  to 
illustrate  any  more  Sunny  Jim  jingles,  so  the  work 
of  illustrating  was  turned  over  to  a  commercial  artist, 
who  retained  the  spirit  of  the  original  drawing  and 
produced  the  various  ones  for  this  set. 

These  jingles  were  not  as  smooth  metrically  as 
Mr.  Hunter  wished,  and  the  work  of  revising  them 
was  offered  to  an  advertising  agency  who  not  only  did 
this  work,  but  supplied,  in  one  way  or  another,  all 
of  the  succeeding  versions  of  the  Sunny  Jim  series, 
both  as  to  designs  and  matter.  The  jingles  were  writ- 
ten by  many  writers ;  in  some  cases,  by  writers  of  na- 
tional reputation.  A  large  number  of  artists  contrib- 
uted to  the  designs.  It  was  the  aim  to  secure  a  great 
deal  of  humor  in  each  picture.  The  artist  most  ca- 
pable of  giving  this  touch  to  the  drawing  lacked  the 
particular  style  which  was  essential  to  the  Sunny  Jim 
drawings,  therefore,  he  was  paid  for  a  rough,  penciled 
sketch  incorporating  the  spirit  of  the  design  which 
was  furnished  by  an  artist  who  could  draw  the  sort 
of  line  which  had  been  used  for  Sunny  Jim. 

The  point  to  be  noticed  is  that  the  idea  of  making 
a  series  of  Sunny  Jim  was  the  thought  of  Mr.  Hunt- 
er, the  advertising  manager,  and  that  the  particular 
12 


160  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

merit  of  creating  the  character  of  Sunny  Jim  is  in- 
cidental. Any  one  of  a  dozen  inceptions  would  have 
done  equally  well;  the  value  of  this  particular  one 
has  been  entirely  due  to  its  reputation  and  wide 
publicity. 

An  advertising  manager's  success  depends  upon 
his  knowledge  of  such  matters  in  what  to  do,  and  what 
not  to  do.  His  freedom  to  carry  out  his  plans  also 
depends  upon  his  relation  to  his  company.  Many  a 
well-planned  campaign  is  spoiled  by  the  efforts  of 
various  members  of  a  company  who  insist  upon  the 
exploitation  of  their  own  ideas.  On  the  other  hand, 
many  companies  have  been  wrecked  by  allowing  an 
incompetent  advertising  manager  full  scope.  Prob- 
ably no  other  business  depends  so  fully  upon  the  tem- 
perament and  disposition  of  the  man  doing  the  work. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  most  successful  advertising 
managers  of  to-day  are  the  men  who  are  delivering 
the  most  exact  results  from  a  given  appropriation. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE  GENERAL  ADVERTISING  AGENCY 

THIS  term  "  agency  "  or  "  general  agency  "  is  not 
adequate  in  describing  properly  the  functions  of  the 
general  advertising  agency.  It  has  survived  from 
the  earlier  days  of  advertising,  when  the  term  ex- 
pressed a  meaning  as  complete  as  could  be  desired. 

In  a  former  chapter  it  was  shown  how  the  agency 
idea  was  started  by  men  who  made  contracts  with  one 
or  more  newspapers  to  be  their  sole  representative  in 
a  given  city  or  a  given  territory.  Such  an  agency  is 
to-day  known  as  a  special  agency.  With  the  growth 
of  advertising,  however,  conditions  have  so  changed 
that  the  general  advertising  agent  is  now  practically 
the  agent  of  every  publication  in  the  country,  in 
that  he  is  paid  a  commission  on  all  the  business  he 
sends  them. 

It  is  even  now  a  much-discussed  question  whether 
the  advertising  agent  is  the  agent  of  the  publisher  or 
the  agent  of  the  advertiser.  Although  this  has  been 
debated  for  several  years,  it  is  still  brought  up  from 
time  to  time.  The  publisher  of  a  magazine  whose 
circulation  is  one  of  the  largest  in  the  country,  asserts 
that  the  agent  is  an  employee  of  the  publisher.  He 
claims  this  because  the  agent  receives  a  commission 
on  all  the  business  he  sends  to  that  publication,  and 
that,  furthermore,  it  is  his  duty  as  an  employee 
to  work  for  that  publication,  to  fight  its  battles, 

161 


162  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

to  break  down  any  prejudice  that  might  be  found 
against  it  and  to  place  it  on  every  list  where  he  con- 
scientiously can.  He  goes  even  farther  than  this  and 
says  that  the  time  will  come  when  the  publisher  will 
insist  upon  directing  the  advertising  campaign  which 
the  advertising  agent  is  supposed  to  manage  for  his 
client. 

The  fallacy  of  this  argument  can  be  best  illus- 
trated by  the  statement  that  there  are  something  like 
twenty-three  thousand  publications  in  this  country. 
The  advertising  agent  under  this  interpretation  would 
have  twenty-three  thousand  employers,  and  when  he 
secures  a  new  advertising  account  the  proper  thing 
for  him 'to  do  would  be  to  rent  a  convention  hall, 
call  in  his  twenty-three  thousand  employers,  and  let 
them  direct  him  in  the  planning  and  execution  of 
the  campaign.  If  this  be  not  correct,  the  rule  must 
then  be  applied  only  to  those  publications  to  whose 
offices  the  agent,  when  he  gets  a  new  account,  will 
go  and  allow  himself  to  be  directed  as  to  how  the 
account  shall  be  handled.  Of  course,  in  doing  this, 
he  will  obviously  Become  disloyal  to  his  twenty- 
two  thousand  nine  hundred  and  ninety-nine  other* 
employers  and  will  bring  down  upon  his  head  their 
wrath.  One  must  bear  in  mind  also  that  the  adver- 
tising agent,  on  this  theory,  would  be  the  employee 
of  the  street-car  advertising  and  bill-board  companies, 
the  painted-sign^  people,  the  trade  papers  and  various 
other  advertising  mediums  of  more  or  less  value. 

The  only  logical  answer  to  claims  of  this  kind  is 
that  the  agent  is  not  an  employee  of  the  publications 
at  all.  He  is  a  sort  ^f  wholesata—or  middleman,  as 
far  as  the  purchase  of  s^iace  is  concerned.  As  a  whole- 


THE  GENERAL  ADVERTISING  AGENCY        163 

saler  he  gets  the  jobber's  price,  which  is  ten  or  fifteen 
per  cent,  below  the  retail  price. 

The  manufacturer  or  advertiser  engages  the  agent 
on  account  of  the  special  training  he  has  had,  or  is 
supposed  to  have  had,  in  successfully  increasing  the 
business  of  the  manufacturer  by  selling  his  goods 
through  the  mediums  of  type,  ink  and  paper.  He  be- 
comes an  additional  selling  force  and  a  part  of  the 
sales  department. 

~No  one  will  question  that  the  commission  basis 
for  handling  an  advertising  account  is  illogical  and 
unsatisfactory.  It  is  a  condition  of  the  business 
which  grew  out  of  conditions  that  existed  when 
advertising  agent  really  meant  what  is  known  as  a 
special  agent — a  man  who  represented  exclusively  one 
or  more  publications  in  a  given  city  or  territory. 

The  publishers  of  the  country  pay  a  commis- 
sion to  advertising  agents  because  the  agents  are, 
and  always  have  been,  the  greatest  creative  force 
of  new  advertising,  and  because  the  publisher  wants 
this  creative  force  to  continue  in  operation,  knowing 
full  well  that  as  the  volume  of  general  advertising 
increases,  he  will  secure  his  share  of  patronage  in  pro- 
portion as  his  publication  is  valuable.  The.  real  point 
of  the  controversy,  however,  is  often  lost  sight  of, 
and  that  is  owing  to  the  fact  that  publishers  have  not 
been  sufficiently  discriminating  in  their  recognition 
of  agents ;  they  are  doing  business  with  many  who  are 
really  a  menace  to  the  advertising  business.  Every 
publisher  feels  reasonably  sure,  though  he  may  not 
be  in  position  to  put  the  matter  to  proof,  that  he  has 
on  his  list  of  recognized  agents,  men  who  employ 
doubtful  methods,  who  have  neither  the  intelligence, 


164  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

ability  nor  willingness  to  handle  an  advertising  ac- 
count to  the  best  advantage,  and  men  who  consider 
only  the  profit  they  can  make  out  of  a  manufacturer 
during  the  life  of  their  first  contract. 

Thousands  of  manufacturers  have  become  dis- 
couraged and  have  dropped  out  of  the  field  altogether, 
simply  because  they  had  the  misfortune  to  fall  into 
the  hands  of  an  incompetent  or  a  dishonest  agent. 
The  publishers  lose  more  heavily  than  any  one  else 
from  such  a  condition,  because  they  get  but  one  year's 
business  from  an  advertiser  who,  if  his  account  had 
been  properly  handled,  would  have  been  a  permanent 
customer. 

Almost  any  one  seems  able  to  become  an  adver- 
tising agent  and  to  be  recognized  as  such,  and  once 
an  advertising  agent,  always  an  advertising  agent, 
whether  the  methods  employed  are  helpful  or  detri- 
mental. Some  little  quibble  is  occasionally  raised  as 
to  a  new  advertising  agent  needing  to  have  at  hand 
three  accounts  before  he  will  be  recognized,  but  the 
restriction  is  not  enforced  in  spirit  or  letter. 

If  the  publishers  of  this  country,  and  especially 
the  magazine  publishers,  would  revise  their  lists  and 
confine  them  to  agents  who  actually  create  business, 
their  troubles  would  be  lessened  and  their  business 
would  be  placed  upon  a  firmer  basis.  If  such  action 
were  taken,  it  would  mean  a  better  protection  to 
manufacturers  whose  business  the  magazines  are  con- 
stantly soliciting. 

The  Quoin  Club,  which  is  composed  of  the  adver- 
tising managers  of  the  leading  magazines,  has  done 
much  to  settle  many  of  these  problems.  Their  sessions 
are  not  public,  and  therefore,  no  accurate  knowledge 


THE  GENERAL  ADVERTISING  AGENCY        165 

of  their  deliberations  is  available,  but  the  general 
impression  among  advertising  men  seems  to  be  that 
there  is  a  lack  of  uniformity  as  to  policy,  due  possibly 
to  the  fact  that  the  members  of  the  club  represent 
conflicting  business  interests.  It  is  to  be  hoped,  how- 
ever, that  as  the  organization  grows  in  strength,  its 
work  will  result  in  greater  and  more  permanent  im- 
provement. It  is  quite  certain  that  its  efforts  meet 
with  the  approval  and  support  of  the  better  class  of 
advertising  agents. 

The  modern  advertising  agent,  therefore,  if  he  is 
an  employee  at  all,  is  the  employee  of  the  advertiser, 
but  his  relation  to  the  advertiser  is  more  like  that  of 
a  lawyer  to  his  client.  In  order  to  be  in  position  to 
produce  the  best  results,  his  relation  to  his  client 
should  be  a  confidential  one.  The  client  should  be 
willing  to  tell  him  his  business  secrets.  He  should 
know  the  volume  of  business,  the  margin  of  profit, 
the  territory  now  being  operated,  and  the  reasons  why 
that  territory  can  or  can  not  be  extended.  He  should 
be  familiar  with  the  arguments  made  by  the  salesmen. 
He  should  know  what  competition  must  be  met  and 
what  methods  are  employed  in  that  competition.  He 
should  have  a  clear  view  of  the  market.  In  short, 
the  advertiser  should  be  prepared  to  place  before  his 
advertising  agent  a  digest  of  his  entire  business. 

The  advertising  agent,  after  considering  all  these 
things,  constructs  an  advertising  plan  based  upon  the 
kind  of  salesmanship  best  calculated  to  produce  re- 
sults, which  plan  will,  in  his  judgment,  increase  the 
volume  of  sales  and  extend  the  territory  of  those  sales. 
He  should  be  independent  of  publications,  although 
indirectly  representing  them.  He  should  select  pub- 


166  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

lications  solely  upon  their  merits  for  the  exploitation 
of  the  goods  he  has  under  consideration  and  in  accord- 
ance with  the  appropriation  which  he  deems  necessary, 
and  which  the  manufacturer  has  decided  to  place  at 
his  disposal.  This  appropriation  should  always  be 
considered  as  an  advertising  investment  and  should 
not  under  any  consideration  be  classed  as  a  business 
expense.  It  is  just  as  fully  a  legitimate  investment 
as  an  investment  in  real  estate. 

Having  decided  upon  the  framework  of  his  plan, 
the  advertising  agent  then  proceeds  to  carry  out  the 
plan.  In  doing  this,  he  must  have  talent  or  some 
natural  aptitude  for  making  the  same  kind  of  an  im- 
pression upon  the  reader  as  the  personal  talk  of  a  sales- 
man would  make.  This  does  not  mean  the  ability 
to  write  smart  catchphrases  or  to  play  upon  words, 
although  it  frequently  happens  that  a  catchphrase  will 
lead  the  reader  into  the  body  of  the  text  by  exciting 
the  interest  of  one  who  is  casually  turning  over  the 
pages.  At  other  times  this  is  done  by  means  of  a 
pertinent  or  attractive  illustration. 

The  advertising  agent,  therefore,  must  know 
something  of  type,  something  of  art,  something  of 
the  various  kinds  of  engraving  and  printing.  He 
must  know  much  of  business  and  a  great  deal  of  sales- 
manship. Probably  the  best  training  a  young  man 
could  have  who  is  about  to  embark  on  this  business, 
would  be  first  to  have  sold  goods  on  the  road  or  across 
a  counter.  George  Dyer,  a  well-known  writer  of 
advertising  matter,  has  discussed  the  advertising 
agency  and  its  functions  luminously  in  the  columns 
of  Mahin's  Magazine.1  He  says : 

1  Thiis  magazine  has  ceased  to  be  published 


THE  GENERAL  ADVERTISING  AGENCY       167 

'The  institution  known  as  an  advertising  agency  is  often 
a  puzzle  to  the  new  advertiser.  His  interest  in  publicity 
may  be  entirely  due  to  some  agent  who  has  labored  long  and 
zealously  to  awaken  him  to  new  business  possibilities.  Yet 
when  it  comes  to  buying  space  he  is  troubled  by  the  thought 
of  the  agent's  commission. 

"  He  learns  that  there  are  scores  of  agents  of  little  finan- 
cial responsibility.  He  is  perhaps  solicited  by  some  who 
are  pretty  light-weight  specimens,  judged  by  his  every-day 
knowledge  of  men  and  affairs.  He  is  astounded  to  learn 
that  desk-room  and  a  few  new  accounts  are  the  only  quali- 
fications necessary  for  an  agent,  and  that  recognition  means 
that  this  individual,  who  perhaps  has  not  the  money  to  pay 
for  the  space,  can  buy  it  ten  per  cent,  cheaper  than  the  man 
who  uses  it. 

"  Now  the  advertiser  very  likely  prides  himself  upon  his 
capital  and  his  credit  and  their  power  to  command  the  best 
price  in  every  market.  He  is  accustomed  to  buying  at  first 
hand  and  not  from  jobbers  and  commission  men.  He  re- 
sents the  superior  buying  advantage  enjoyed  by  the  agent 
and  is  sure  there  must  be  some  way  to  eliminate  him  from 
the  transaction. 

"  Note  the  steps  by  which  this  new  advertiser  reaches  the 
customary  wrong  estimate  of  the  province  of  the  advertising 
agency.  He  is  told  that  the  publications  will  not  take  his 
business  direct,  cash  in  advance,  and  let  him  have  the  agent's 
commission — but  he  is  incredulous. 

"He  thinks  perhaps  a  rebate  scheme  can  be  worked. 
However  he  tries,  he  finds  the  magazines  firm  in  their 
policy.  There  is  no  question  that  they  protect  the  agent. 

"'Now/  he  argues,  'there  must  be  a  weak  spot  some- 
where; let  us  see  if  the  agents  will  be  equally  stanch  in 
protecting  the  publications.'  He  opens  his  business  to 
competition  and  sure  enough  he  finds  the  desired  elasticity. 
One  agent  will  rebate  three  per  cent.,  another  will  split  his 
commission  even,  and  so  on  down  the  line — until  he  finds 
some  one  who  will  consent  to  merely  bill  the  space  each 
month  for  one  or  two  per  cent. 


168  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

"  But  still  the  advertiser  is  not  satisfied.  He  gets  nothing 
in  return  for  this  one  or  two  per  cent.  Viewed  in  the  light  of 
other  commercial  transactions,  it  is  an  unjust  tax  which  he 
is  forced  to  pay  to  an  interloper,  a  man  who  stands  between 
him  and  the  publisher  and  exacts  a  penalty  on  every  dollar 
he  spends  in  the  publications — and  by  what  token,  pray? 
Merely  the  fact  that  the  publisher  is  pleased  to  extend  to  this 
irresponsible  third  party  a  recognition  denied  the  advertiser? 

"  In  the  eyes  of  the  business  man  the  condition  is  a  totally 
unnatural  one.  He  has  little  respect  for  a  business  subject 
to  such  abuses,  and  his  suspicions  are  usually  confirmed  by 
the  poor  results  of  his  advertising. 

"  He  is  under  no  sort  of  obligation  to  the  agent  who  is 
placing  his  business  at  two  per  cent.  He  receives  little  serv- 
ice from  him,  and  that  little  were  better  not  done.  He  is 
not  the  agent  who  did  the  missionary  work  in  the  first  place 
and  interested  him  in  advertising.  The  two-per-cent.  agent 
creates  neither  new  customers  for  the  publisher  nor  new 
trade  for  the  advertiser. 

"  The  agent,  though  voluntarily  agreeing  to  cut  his  com- 
mission, is  usually  dissatisfied.  He  resents  the  low  price 
though  he  does  nothing  to  earn  it.  He  will  try  to  recoup 
himself  at  the  expense  of  the  advertiser  whenever  opportun- 
ity offers. 

"  An  agency  with  an  organization  can  not  be  maintained 
on  less  than  ten  per  cent.  If  it  has  no  organization,  its  serv- 
ices are  dear  though  furnished  free. 

"  Nothing  for  nothing  has  been  the  rule  in  the  business 
world  since  the  beginning;  but  the  advertiser  who  pays  next 
to  nothing  will  get  worse  than  nothing  in  return.  One  of 
the  greatest  wrongs  done  by  the  cut-rate  agent  is  that  he 
diverts  the  buyer's  mind  from  the  main  issue — the  success 
of  the  advertising. 

"  The  beginner  is  likely  to  have  very  vague  ideas  of  ex- 
ploiting his  proposition.  All  he  can  see  is  that  two  per  cent. 
is  less  than  ten  per  cent. — that  is  a  tangible  thing.  The 
conditions  necessary  to  successful  publicity  are  vague  and 
intangible. 


THE  GENERAL  ADVERTISING  AGENCY        169 

"  While  venturing  on  such  uncertain  ground  he  grasps 
eagerly  at  whatever  he  can  understand  of  actuality.  He 
can  see  no  harm  in  saving  everything  possible  at  the  start. 
It  does  not  occur  to  him  that  considering  the  number  of 
advertising  failures,  fifty  per  cent,  would  be  a  small  price 
for  a  guarantee  of  the  success  of  his  proposition. 

"  Of  course  he  can  not  obtain  such  a  guarantee,  but  ten 
per  cent,  is  little  to  pay  for  the  best  advertising  insurance 
available,  and  mind  you,  this  ten  per  cent,  is  paid  by  the 
publisher. 

"  In  other  instances  the  new  advertiser,  not  knowing  how 
or  where  to  begin,  realizing  his  own  weakness  and  utter  de- 
pendence, gladly  admits  the  agent's  right  to  the  full  com- 
mission until  he  thinks  he  can  do  without  assistance;  then 
looks  for  a  cheaper  agent,  and  of  course,  pays  the  usual 
penalty  of  over-smartness. 

"The  fact  that  this  advertiser's  first  success  is  soon  turned 
into  doubt  or  defeat  is  small  consolation  for  the  agent  who 
spent  hours  of  study  and  weeks  of  work  in  the  effort  to  launch 
him  aright.  Every  good  agent  is  accustomed  to  this  sort 
of  thing.  Flagrant  ingratitude,  we  might  call  it  if  we  were 
discussing  the  moral  rather  than  the  business  side  of  it — and 
for  the  advertiser  it  is  very  bad  business. 

"There  can  be  no  question  as  far  as  the  advertiser  is  con- 
cerned that  the  good  agent  is  entitled  to  all  the  commission 
the  publisher  pays  him. 

"He  is  of  greater  assistance  to  some  advertisers  than 
others;  but  I  contend  that  the  intelligent  agent  is  worth  a 
great  deal  more  than  he  gets,  even  in  an  instance  where 
the  advertiser  furnishes  all  his  own  cuts  and  copy,  forwards 
complete  plates  direct  to  the  publication,  selects  his  own 
media,  and  does  the  checking  in  his  own  department. 

"  It  is  plain  that  no  one  besides  the  advertiser  himself  is 
as  much  concerned  in  his  success  as  the  publisher.  Adver- 
tising that  does  not  pay  is  soon  discontinued.  A  discouraged 
customer  is  hard  to  start  over  again.  Every  advertising 
failure,  whatever  its  cause,  works  ill  to  the  business.  Under 
the  present  system  the  agent  is  the  employee  of  the  publisher; 


170  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

paid  to  spread  the  gospel  of  publicity,  paid  to  nurse  new 
advertisers  into  life,  paid  to  help  them  live  and  thrive  after 
they  are  started. 

"  If  we  regard  the  agent  as  the  employee  of  the  publisher, 
then  we  must  criticize  the  publisher  for  the  indiscriminate 
selection  of  his  representatives. 

"We  must  say  to  the  publisher,  'Nine-tenths  of  your 
employees  are  not  fitted  for  their  work.  Either  because  of 
laziness  or  inability  they  give  away  part  of  the  wages  you 
pay  them  in  order  to  shirk  the  work  you  expect  them  to  do. 
You  are  paying  nine-tenths  of  your  employees  to  make  mis- 
chief and  confusion,  undoing  the  work  of  the  other  honest 
tenth  who  keep  faith  with  you  and  help  the  advertiser.' 

"  I  contend  that  the  present  agency  system  is  a  peculiarly 
vicious  one  because  it  fosters  a  lot  of  parasites  who  thrive 
under  conditions  which  they  in  no  way  help  to  create  or 
maintain. 

"By  setting  aside  a  miscellaneous  lot  of  men  and  paying 
them  merely  for  being  agents  you  put  a  premium  upon  in- 
competency. 

"The  agency  system  may  undergo  some  radical  changes, 
but  the  agent  will  never  be  eliminated.  The  publisher  can 
not  afford  to  do  without  him,  no  more  can  the  advertiser. 
The  agency  business,  like  every  other  business,  is  the  product 
of  conditions.  It  is,  in  some  instances,  as  good  as  it  can  be 
made  with  existing  handicaps  and  in  others  as  bad  as  the 
publisher  will  permit  it  to  be. 

"The  questionable  agent  finds  his  support  in  the  ques- 
tionable publisher.  When  the  reliable  publishers  decide  to 
support  the  competent  agents  we  shall  have  better  adver- 
tisers and  more  of  them. 

"The  whole  question  is  up  to  the  publisher,  and  I  want  to 
say  that  the  procession  is  waiting  for  the  newspaper.  The 
leading  newspaper  publishers  to-day  are  fostering  what  is 
bad  in  the  agency  business.  Their  want  of  fairness,  of  honor 
and  of  business  judgment  in  their  attitude  toward  the  cred- 
itable agent  is  only  to  be  compared  with  their  utter  lack  of 
dignity  and  decency  in  their  treatment  of  each  other. 


THE  GENERAL  ADVERTISING  AGENCY        171 

"  If  a  score  of  the  leading  metropolitan  dailies  would  unite 
in  refusing  recognition  to  the  unscrupulous,  irresponsible  and 
incompetent  agent,  they  would  do  more  than  any  other 
force  at  this  time  to  right  abuses  in  the  advertising  business. 
They  would  render  an  incalculable  service  to  themselves. 
They  would  do  a  great  work  for  the  success  of  every  new 
advertiser — and  some  of  the  old  ones." 

Seymour  Eaton,  in  a  speech  before  the  Sphinx 
Club,  an  advertising  organization  of  New  York  City, 
said  that  advertising  methods  which  brought  success 
in  the  past  would  not  necessarily  bring  success  in  the 
future;  the  methods  employed  last  year  would  prob- 
ably not  be  fruitful  this  year ;  the  methods  used  this 
year  would  probably  fail  next  year.  Conditions  are 
constantly  changing,  and  the  successful  advertising 
agent  must  be  alive  to  the  situation  or  he  will  be  likely 
to  lose  money  for  his  client. 

No  advertising  agent  should  allow  himself  to  be 
influenced  or  coerced  in  favor  of  any  publication. 
Nothing  should  count  but  the  presentation  of  the 
claims  of  a  given  publication  and  his  calm  judgment 
on  those  claims.  He  should  steadfastly  regard  the 
interests  of  his  client.  He  should  ignore  friendships 
and  special  pleading.  He  should  select  those  mediums 
which  his  judgment,  training  and  experience  lead  him 
to  believe  to  be  the  best  for  the  purpose  in  hand. 

The  publisher  keenly  appreciates  the  work  of  an 
advertising  agency  along  these  lines,  but  realizing  that 
many  agents  on  his  becks  have  not  this  necessary 
equipment,  he  is  often  in  a  quandary.  Some  pub- 
lishers offer  the  advertiser  a  service  of  their  own. 
They  employ  writers  and  designers,  and  either  sell  or 
give  the  service  of  these  men  to  the  advertiser.  Such 


172  MODERN  ADVERTISING    • 

methods,  however,  can  only  hope  for  success  with  very 
limited  appropriations,  in  which  one  publication  only 
is  considered.  It  must  necessarily  follow  that  after 
the  advertiser  is  strong  enough  to  stand  alone,  he  must 
either  handle  the  work  himself  or  employ  a  disinter- 
ested advertising  man.  This,  because  he  can  never 
shake  off  the  lingering  suspicion  that  the  publisher 
is  an  interested  adviser — interested  too  largely  in  the 
sale  of  his  own  advertising  pages.  The  publisher  is 
in  business  to  sell  advertising  space,  and  as  a  success- 
ful merchant  his  natural  inclination  must  be  to  sell 
all  the  space  he  can  to  a  given  advertiser  before  he 
permits  other  publications  to  be  considered. 

The  advertising  agent  has,  or  should  have,  nothing 
to  sell.  He  is  a  professional  man  in  a  sense,  and 
should  have  but  one  interest — the  success  of  the  adver- 
tising campaign  upon  which  he  is  engaged.  He  should 
concentrate  his  energies  on  making  this  campaign  a 
success  just  as  a  lawyer  concentrates  his  energies  in 
handling  a  case  in  court  toward  securing  a  favorable 
verdict  for  his  client.  The  only  verdict  an  advertising 
agent  is  pleading  for  is  the  verdict  of  the  people  in 
favor  of  the  goods  he  is  advertising. 

The  development  of  the  advertising  agency  has 
covered  a  period  of  upward  of  fifty  years.  In  the 
beginning  it  was  plain  merchandising,  the  profes- 
sional element  not  entering  into  consideration  at  all. 
The  agent  represented  certain  publications  and  he  had 
something  tangible  to  sell — which  was  white  space. 
The  advertising  rates  at  that  time  were  flexible.  He 
got  as  high  a  price  as  he  could.  He  sold  to  the 
highest  bidder. 

George  P.  Rowell,  the  publisher  of  Printers'  Ink, 


THE  GENERAL  ADVERTISING  AGENCY       173 

a  weekly  paper  devoted  to  advertising  interests,  and 
one  of  the  originators  of  the  advertising  agency  busi- 
ness, says  that  no  one  will  ever  be  able  to  make  as 
much  money  out  of  advertising  commissions  as  he 
himself  did,  meaning  by  this  that  the  percentage 
of  profit  on  any  given  appropriation  was  greater  in 
the  beginning  of  the  advertising  business  than  it 
is  to-day. 

The  first  men  who  founded  advertising  agencies 
reaped  a  good  profit,  the  profit  that  comes  to  the  orig- 
inator of  any  good  idea.  As  advertising  agencies 
multiplied,  competition  forced  a  gradual  decline  in 
commissions,  until  the  percentage  has  approached  a 
fixed  point.  This  fixed  point  has  settled  somewhere 
between  ten  and  fifteen  per  cent. 

It  seems  now  to  be  generally  accepted  that  the 
commission  of  from  ten  to  fifteen  per  cent,  is  a  just' 
and  right  compensation  to  the  agent,  and  sufficient 
to  allow  him  a  proper  margin  for  giving  good  service 
to  the  advertiser.  These  terms  seem  to  be  acceptable 
to  most  of  the  agents. 

Advertising  men,  however,  can  be  divided  into 
several  classes :  First  are  those  operating  on  the  old 
lines  and  who  are  little  more  than  brokers  in  space. 
Their  service  is  not  particularly  valuable.  They  re- 
lieve the  merchant  of  the  details  of  correspondence 
with  publications,  of  adjusting  rates,  of  the  bookkeep- 
ing, checking  and  billing  incident  to  an  advertising 
campaign.  Such  agencies  are  not  in  position  to  earn 
the  maximum  commission,  and  realizing  this,  they  are 
willing  to  share  their  commissions  with  the  advertiser. 
Unfortunately,  in  doing  this,  they  go  into  direct  com- 
petition very  frequently  with  the  modern  advertising 


174  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

agent  to  whom  the  brokerage  in  space  is  merely  inci- 
dental to  the  professional  side  of  the  campaign — that 
is,  the  planning  of  the  campaign  itself,  the  prepara- 
tion of  "  copy,"  the  "  follow-up  "  system  and  the  gen- 
eral study  of  the  market. 

To  the  modern  agent,  even  the  maximum  commis- 
sion is  an  inadequate  return  for  the  service  he  renders 
unless  the  appropriation  is  a  very  large  one.  In  order 
to  protect  the  better  agency,  a  number  of  the  leading 
magazines  have  made  it  conditional — and  in  some 
cases  have  a  written  contract  to  that  effect — that  ten 
per  cent,  shall  be  the  commission  and  that  no  agent 
shall  divide  this  ten  per  cent,  commission  with  his 
clients. 

The  abuse  of  the  splitting  of  commissions  applies 
almost  altogether  to  the  magazines,  as  newspaper  com- 
missions and  newspaper  rates  still  vary  so  much,  and 
as  the  newspapers  themselves  are  not,  as  a  rule,  very 
particular  on  this  point  and  set  up  no  iron-clad  con- 
ditions. But  the  action  of  the  magazines  by  no  means 
settles  the  question.  In  the  first  place,  is  ten  per  cent, 
a  fair  and  just  compensation  for  planning  an  adver- 
tising campaign?  Second,  if  it  is,  just  what  shall 
be  done  for  that  ten  per  cent.  ?  Each  agent  settles 
these  questions  for  himself. 

If  ten  per  cent,  is  charged  for  the  mere  clerical 
act  of  placing  the  advertising  in  the  magazines,  check- 
ing up  the  insertions  and  rendering  bills  for  space,  it 
is  a  high  rate.  But  if  it  is  the  amount  charged  for 
real  advertising  service  in  making  plans,  selecting 
the  mediums,  and  preparing  the  "  copy  "  and  designs, 
the  price  is  low — in  some  cases  too  low  to  be  profitable. 
An  appropriation  varies.  It  may  be  one  thousand  or 


THE  GENERAL  ADVERTISING  AGENCY       175 

one  hundred  thousand  dollars.  Yet,  within  certain 
limits,  the  amount  of  work  to  be  done  for  the  one- 
thousand-dollar  plan  is  almost  as  much  as  that  for 
the  one-hundred-thousand-dollar  plan. 

When  an  agent  places  a  four-inch  advertise- 
ment in  The  Ladies'  Home  Journal,  his  commis- 
sion is  thirty-three  dollars  and  sixty  cents.  If  he 
places  a  page  advertisement  in  The  Ladies'  Home 
Journal,  his  commission  is  four  hundred  dollars. 
It  is  easily  possible  that  the  design  and  "  copy " 
used  in  the  four-inch  advertisement  may  involve  just 
as  much  time,  labor  and  thought  as  the  page  adver- 
tisement. Then  the  agent  gets  respectively  thirty- 
three  dollars  and  sixty  cents  and  four  hundred  dollars 
for  the  same  amount  of  service.  Of  course,  these 
things  even  themselves  up  in  handling  a  number  of 
appropriations,  but  it  will  be  seen  that  a  compensation 
fixed  by  this  basis  is  illogical  and  unfair.  Meanwhile, 
the  better  class  of  agencies  make  an  arrangement 
whereby  they  maintain  the  ten  per  cent,  commission 
with  an  extra  charge  for  designing,  engraving,  com- 
position and  all  the  mechanical  details  incident  to 
an  advertising  campaign.  This  is  more  businesslike 
than  the  other  method  and  is  the  present  status  of  the 
matter. 

Manifestly  the  labor  of  writing  an  advertisement 
is  more  or  less  uniform.  A  design  can  cost  anywhere 
from  five  dollars  to  a  thousand  dollars,  and  generally 
it  is  for  the  advertising  agent  and  the  advertiser  to 
decide  how  expensive  a  design — or  in  other  words,  how 
good  a  design — should  be  used.  The  opinion  of  the 
agent  in  such  cases  is  important,  as  it  is  his  duty  not 
to  recommend  any  unnecessary  expense;  but  on  the 
13 


176  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

other  hand,  he  should  not  fail  to  insist  upon  any  ex- 
pense that  seems  necessary. 

In  distinction  from  this,  there  are  many  agencies 
which  make  it  a  business  to  place  magazine  adverti- 
sing at  a  cut  price.  This  cut  price  is  sometimes  lower 
even  than  five  per  cent.  But  the  agency  which  at- 
tempts to  place  a  large  volume  of  business  on  such  a 
small  margin  is  a  menace  to  the  publishers.  Within 
the  past  two  years  there  have  been  many  failures,  some 
of  which  have  shown  assets  of  practically  nothing  and 
liabilities  of  upward  of  a  million  dollars. 

Many  manufacturers  who  have  decided  to  adver- 
tise and  who  lack  a  thorough  realization  of  the  differ- 
ence in  agencies,  select  the  list  of  publications  decided 
upon,  the  size  of  space  and  the  number  of  insertions, 
and  then  secure  bids.  Such  bids,  of  course,  cover 
nothing  but  the  mere  placing  of  the  advertising  in  the 
magazines. 

To  secure  these  contracts,  agencies  of  the  broker- 
age type — ignoring  the  agreements  and  signed  con- 
tracts with  publications — will  bid  as  low  as  they  must 
go  in  order  to  be  favored.  And  if  the  list  is  a  long 
one  and  contains  many  weak  magazines — that  is,  mag- 
azines whose  lowest  net  rate  no  one  is  sure  of — they 
can  often  make  themselves  good.  As  long  as  the  bulk 
of  the  commission,  even  at  two  or  three  per  cent.,  is 
more  than  ten  per  cent,  on  the  magazines  that  insist 
upon  ten  per  cent.,  the  agent  is  safe. 

Even  the  advertiser  who  intends  to  turn  over  all 
his  advertising  work  to  an  agency  sometimes  insists 
upon  bids.  Manifestly,  except  where  a  difference  in 
rates  can  be  secured,  the  agent  who  secures  the  con- 
tract at  five  per  cent,  is  agreeing  to  give  the  same 


THE  GENERAL  ADVERTISING  AGENCY       177 

service  for  which  another  would  charge  ten  per  cent. 
As  the  cost  of  space  can  not  be  cut  with  the  better 
magazines,  the  agency  must  necessarily  "  cut  "  the 
quality  of  its  service.  The  laborer  is  worthy  of  his 
hire.  The  advertiser  is  not  going  to  get  the  same 
service  from  an  agency  which  charges  five  per  cent, 
commission  as  he  would  from  an  agency  which  charges 
ten.  No  man  can  deliver  a  thousand  dollars'  worth 
of  goods  and  charge  five  hundred  dollars  for  the  goods 
and  make  money,  and  no  advertising  agent  is  going 
to  do  it. 

There  are  only  two  logical  solutions  of  the  situa- 
tion :  One  is  that  the  publishers  must  revise  their  lists 
and  cut  out  the  fungus  growth  that  now  retards  their 
progress,  doing  business  only  with  agencies  of  whose 
methods  they  are  in  no  doubt,  or  eliminate  the  agency 
altogether  and  make  a  net  rate  to  everybody,  so  that 
no  agency  or  individual  will  get  any  advantage  what- 
ever in  placing  business.  Then  the  advertising  agent 
will  charge  a  definite  price  for  his  service,  the  same 
as  a  lawyer  or  an  architect  would  charge,  which  will 
be  a  certain  percentage  of  the  amount  of  the  appro- 
priation. This  would  naturally  put  out  of  business 
a  large  number  of  agencies  which  at  present  have  no 
excuse  for  existence  except  as  mere  placing  machines. 

The  advertising  agencies  which  have  the  largest 
mortgage  on  the  future  are  those  whose  service  in 
placing  advertising  is  their  least  important  claim  for 
recognition.  Agencies  resting  securely  upon  a  foun- 
dation of  furnishing  effective  plans,  striking  designs, 
good  "  copy,"  competent  advice  and  thorough  systems, 
are  in  the  same  relation  to  their  customers  as  is  a  sal- 
aried advertising  man  on  the  customer's  pay-roll.  As 


178  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

things  are  at  present,  however,  the  agency  which  in- 
sists upon  a  straight  ten  per  cent,  plus  the  cost  of 
designs  and  mechanical  accessories,  and  delivers  the 
service,  is  by  far  the  best  agency  for  the  advertiser. 
The  kind  of  service  such  an  agency  can  give  is  worth 
more  than  ten  per  cent,  of  the  appropriation,  and  the 
agency  which  persistently  refuses  to  split  the  commis- 
sion is  the  agency  which  persistently  refuses  to  depre- 
ciate its  service. 

The  contract  which  some  of  the  leading  magazines 
require  advertising  agents  to  sign  is  insisted  upon  not 
merely  for  the  protection  of  the  better  class  of  agents, 
but  for  the  protection  of  the  magazine  itself.  The 
cutting  of  rates  was  recognized  by  The  Curtis  Pub- 
lishing Company,  owners  of  The  Ladies'  Home  Jour- 
nal and  The  Saturday  Evening  Post,  as  a  serious 
menace  to  advertising  standards.  The  Ladies'  Home 
Journal  at  that  time  being  one  of  the  leading  adver- 
tising mediums  of  the  country,  representing  the 
largest  amount  of  money  and  the  greatest  volume  of 
advertising,  together  with  the  largest  circulation, 
formed  a  part  of  nearly  every  advertising  estimate. 

Unscrupulous  agents,  in  order  to  get  the  business, 
would  cut  the  rate  of  The  Ladies'  Home  Journal  more 
seriously  than  that  of  any  other  paper,  as  it  repre- 
sented a  larger  amount  of  money ;  then  having  secured 
the  order,  they  would  attempt  to  reduce  the  amount 
of  space  to  be  used  in  The  Journal  to  less  than  had 
been  estimated  upon.  In  this  way  The  Journal  was 
discriminated  against  and  suffered. 

Thomas  Balmer,  then  western  agent  of  The  La- 
dies' Home  Journal,  in  collaboration  with  a  western 
advertising  agent,  arranged  a  form  of  contract  and 


THE  GENERAL  ADVERTISING  AGENCY        179 

plan  by  which  this  difficulty  was  met.  His  plan  has 
been  gradually  put  into  effect  until  every  agency 
recognized  by  The  Ladies'  Home  Journal  has  signed 
the  contract.  Other  leading  magazines  have  contracts 
more  or  less  similar  in  form.  The  Ladies'  Home 
Journal  agreement  is  as  follows : 

THE  CURTIS  PUBLISHING  COMPANY,  PHILADELPHIA. 

Gentlemen :  In  acting  as  your  agent  for  the  placing  of 
advertising  in  The  Ladies'  Home  Journal  and  The  Saturday 
Evening  Post,  for  which  we  are  now  allowed  a  commission  of 
ten  per  cent.,  we  hereby  agree  to  maintain  your  full  card 
rate,  less  the  regular  cash  discount  of  five  per  cent,  for  pay- 
ment before  the  first  day  of  month  following  date  of  bill. 

We  further  agree  not  to  quote  any  price  for  advertising 
in  The  Ladies'  Home  Journal  or  The  Saturday  Evening  Post 
at  less  than  your  full  card  rates  at  that  time  in  effect,  and 
should  this  agency,  or  any  of  its  solicitors  or  connections, 
accept  business  and  violate  this  agreement,  either  by  direct 
cut  in  price  or  by  allowance  in  any  form,  we  will,  upon  satis- 
factory proof  of  same,  pay  you  the  full  card  rate  for  the  busi- 
ness on  which  cut  or  allowance  has  been  made — subject  only 
to  the  regular  cash  discount. 

We  further  agree  to  be  held  responsible  for  any  quotation 
of  your  price  at  less  than  your  full  card  rates,  whether  we  do 
or  do  not  secure  the  business,  upon  which  the  estimate  has 
been  made,  and  we  agree  that  any  quotation  at  less  than 
rates  will  be  considered  a  violation  of  our  agreement. 

It  is  understood  and  agreed  upon  our  part  that,  should 
this  agreement  be  violated  a  second  time,  we  are  to  be 
dropped  from  the  list  of  agents  for  The  Ladies'  Home  Journal 
and  The  Saturday  Evening  Post,  and  that  any  future  business 
from  us — if  accepted  by  you,  will  be  subject  to  the  regular 
cash  discount  only. 

We  further  understand  and  agree  that  ten  per  cent,  added 
to  your  net  rate  to  us  is  a  cut  in  your  rate,  and  further,  that 


180 


MODERN  ADVERTISING 


the  five  per  cent,  discount  for  cash  can  not  be  allowed  to  an 
advertiser,  unless  the  advertiser  pays  us  as  promptly  as  we 
must  pay  you  to  obtain  it. 

We  further  understand  and  agree  that  estimates  on  both 
The  Ladies'  Home  Journal  and  The  Saturday  Evening  Post 
must  be  made  separately,  and  not  with  a  list  of  publications, 
where  any  deviation  is  made  from  the  publishers'  full  card 
rates  at  that  time  in  effect. 

This  agreement  is  to  supersede  and  cancel  all  previous 
agreements  on  this  subject. 

Very  truly  yours, 

An  agent  living  up  to  his  agreement  not  to  quote 
net  rates,  not  to  split  commissions,  and  charging  a 
straight  ten  per  cent,  on  all  business  placed,  would 
render  to  a  customer  an  estimate  something  like  this : 


ESTIMATE  FOR  THE 


January  1,  1905. 


COMPANY. 


Ladies'  Home  Journal,    1  col.    12  times. 
Delineator,  1    "      12     " 

Saturday  Evening  Post,  \  page  12     " 


Christian  Herald, 

1 

12 

Century, 

1 

12 

Scribner's, 

1 

12 

Leslie's, 

1 

12 

McClure's, 

1 

12 

Munsey's, 

1 

12 

Harpers', 

1 

12 

Review  of  Reviews, 

1 

12 

Cosmopolitan, 

1    < 

'      12 

Net. 


$2,268.00 


2,721.60 


Gross. 
$14,400.00 
8,040.00 
5,400.00 

2,250.00 
2,700.00 

4,492.80 
5,400.00 


Commission  10%. 


2,430.00 
2,160.00 
3,870.72 

$13,450.32 

1,345.03      14,795.35 


$57,478.15 


THE  GENERAL  ADVERTISING  AGENCY       181 

The  net  column  represents  publications  which  do 
not  insist  on  an  agreement  not  to  quote  net  rates. 
Ten  per  cent,  is  added  to  this  net  price,  but  nothing 
is  added  to  the  price  for  magazines  quoted  gross. 

The  tools  used  by  an  agent  are  not  numerous. 
The  chief  part  of  his  equipment,  aside  from  his  pro- 
fessional knowledge,  is  a  complete  and  classified  set 
of  the  rate-cards  of  all  publications — magazines,  news- 
papers and  trade  papers.  To  these  are  added  the  rate- 
cards  for  street-car  advertising  and  bill-posting. 

Some  agencies  in  this  country  carry  the  rate-cards 
of  foreign  countries,  such  as  England  and  its  colonies, 
but  not  often.  If  an  American  advertising  agent 
has  a  customer  who  desires  to  advertise  in  England, 
he  usually  makes  arrangements  with  some  English 
agency  to  do  the  placing  in  both  Great  Britain  and  its 
colonies.  Several  American  agencies  maintain  Lon- 
don offices  which  perform  this  service. 

The  American  agency  which  has  on  file  the  current 
rate-card  of  every  publication  in  the  country,  is  well 
equipped  to  make  estimates  for  its  plans.  The  mere 
possession  of  rate-cards  is  not  enough,  however.  It 
takes  a  man  expert  in  that  sort  of  work  to  make  an 
estimate.  When  a  plan  is  confined  to  the  leading 
magazines,  this  is  not  so  difficult,  as  the  magazine  rate- 
cards  are  gotten  up  in  a  more  uniform  shape  than 
those  of  other  publications,  as,  for  instance,  the 
newspapers.  Still  there  are  a  number  of  variations 
to  be  noted. 

For  instance,  some  magazines  give  a  discount  for 
three  pages  used  within  a  year.  Other  magazines  give 
a  discount  for  six  or  for  twelve  insertions  during  a 
year.  One  column  in  The  Ladies'  Home  Journal 


182  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

amounts  to  a  quarter  of  a  page  as  there  are  four  col- 
umns to  the  page.  There  is  a  special  quarter-page 
rate  of  one  thousand  dollars,  but  this  always  means 
a  quarter  page  two  columns  wide  and  half  a  column 
deep.  When  the  quarter  page  is  used  in  the  shape  of 
a  single  column,  the  line-rate  prevails,  which  makes 
the  cost  of  the  space  twelve  hundred  dollars.  In  other 
words,  a  quarter  page  in  one  part  of  The  Journal  costs 
one  thousand  dollars,  and  in  another  part  of  The  Jour- 
nal costs  twelve  hundred  dollars.  The  reason  for  this 
is  that  a  perpendicular  column  is  a  more  desirable 
form  as  it  is  always  placed  next  to  reading  matter. 
These  distinctions  must  be  borne  in  mind  by  the 
agent  or  estimator  who  is  making  up  an  estimate 
for  a  customer. 

The  rate-cards  of  The  Century  and  the  Butterick 
Trio  are  given  herewith  as  samples  of  rate-cards  of 
representative  magazines.  The  Century  rate-card  is 
one  for  a  magazine  of  the  standard  magazine  size. 
The  one  for  the  Butterick  Trio  is  a  rate-card  for  three 
publications  separately  or  in  combination,  showing 
regular  rates,  special  positions  and  the  like.  These 
may  be  taken  as  typical  of  magazine  rate-cards. 

It  is  important  for  the  agent  to  know  and  keep 
watch  of  the  fact  that  a  customer  is  entitled  to  a  dis- 
count for  continuous  insertions.  Often  when  it  is  the 
advertiser's  intention  to  stay  out  of  a  given  number, 
by  using  a  very  small  advertisement  consisting  of  only 
a  few  lines,  the  minimum  number  always  being  speci- 
fied by  the  publication,  the  lower  rate  can  be  held. 

It  is  also  important  that  the  agent  should  promptly 
notify  his  customers  of  a  proposed  advance  in  rates. 
When  a  magazine  has  reached  a  circulation  greater 


THE   CENTURY   MAGAZINE 
33  EAST  lyxn  ST.,  NEW  YORK 


Size  of  Type  Page,  7!  inches  long  by  si  inches  wide. 

Single  Column,  7!  inches  long  by  2j9B  inches  wide. 
The  Day  of  Publication,  between  27th  and  3151. 
Advertising  Forms  Close  on  3oth  of  Preceding  Month. 
Price,  per  page,  $250;    half,  $125;    quarter,  $62.50. 
"         "    line,  $1.75,  nonpareil. 
"        "    inch,  $21.00. 
Discounts:     3  months,  5^.         6  months,  io& 

9  months,  15^.     i  year,  2556. 

Six  pages  or  more  within  one  year  at  yearly  rates. 
Preferred  Positions  by  Contract. 

Century  Advertising  Supplement,  $1400  to  $1800  for  four  pages. 
Special  Net  School  Rate  :    $15  an  inch;   $7.50  half  inch.     Uniform  display 

for  all  spaces  less  than  quarter  page. 
Terms:     Cash. 

NOTE.—  3  pages  Century  and  3  pages  St.  Nicholas  together,  within  the 
year,  at  $300  per  page  ;    /.  e.,  yearly  rates  in  each. 


THIS   SHOWS    A    RATE-CARD    FOR   A   MAGAZINE    OF   STANDARD   SIZE 

(5ix8  INCHES)  TYPE  PAGE. 


183 


TheButterickTrio 

For  advertisements  with  the  same  copy  and  key  for 
THE  DELINEATOR 
THE  DESIGNER  and 

NEW  IDEA  WOMAN'S  MAGAZINE 

Per  Agate  Line,  each  insertion. - $         7.121 

Column  advertisements  (134  lines)  each  insertion 954.75 

Double    Column   Advertisements   (268    lines)    each 

insertion 1,809.00 

Full  .Page  Advertisements  (400  lines)  each  insertion,  2,550.00 

Special  Positions 

Second  or  Third  Cover... 2,850.00 

For  all  the  above,  forms  close  10th  of  second  preceding  month ; 
example,  Nov.  10  for  Jan.  Issues. 

Fourth  Cover  (Back  Cover)  including  making  of  plates,  4,000.00 

Drawing  due  1st  of  third  preceding  month ;  example,  Oct.  1st  for  Jan.  Issues. 

THE  DELINEATOR 

Published  by  The  Butterlck  I'nMMiiiiir  Co.,  Ltd. 

Per  Agate  Line,  each  insertion .  .  $        5.00 

Column  Advertisements  t!34  lines)  each  insertion 670.00 

Double  Column  Advertisements  (268  lines)  each  insertion,   1,340.00 
Full  Page  Advertisements  (400  lines)  each  insertion 1,800.00 

Special  Positions 

Second  or  Third  Covers 2,000.00. 

.  For  all  the  above,  forms  close  K'tti  of  second  prodding  month ; 
example,  Nov.  10  for  Jan.  Issues. 

Fourth  Cover  (Back  Cover)  including  making  of  plates  .  .     3,000.00 

Drawing  due  1st  of  third  preceding  month  ;  example,  Oct.  1st  for  Jan.  Issues. 

THE  DESIGNER 

Published  by  the  Standard  Fashion  Company 

Per  Agate  Line,  each  insertion  .  .  . $  1.50 

Column  Advertisements  (134  lines)  each  insertion 201.00 

Double  Column  Advertisements  (268  lines)  each  insertion,  402.00 

Full  Page  Advertisements  (400  lines)  each  insertion  ....  540.00 

Special  Positions 

Second  or  Third  Cover.  . 600.00 

For  all  the  above,  forms  close  10th  of  second  preceding  month ; 
example,  Nov.  10  for  Jan  Issues. 

Fourth  Cover  (Back  Cover)  including  making  of  plates  .  .       900.00 
Drawing  due  1st  of  third  preceding  month;  example,  Oct.  1st  for  Jan.  Issues. 

New  Idea  'Woman's  Magazine 

Published  by  the  New  Idea  Pattern  Company 

Per  Agate  Line,  each  insertion  .  .   . $  1.00 

Column  Advertisements  (134  lines)  each  insertion 134.00 

Double  Column  Advertisements  (268  lines)  each  insertion,  268.00 

Full  Page  Advertisements  (400  lines)  each  insertion  .  -.  .  .  360.00 

Special  Positions 

Second  or  Third  Cover 400.00 

For  all  the  above,  form*  .close  10th  of  second  preceding  month ; 
example,  Nov.  10  for  Jan.  Issues. 

Fourth  Cover  (Back  Cover)  including  making  of  plates  .  .       600.00 

Drawing  due  1st  of  third  preceding  month ;  example.  Oct.  1st  for  Jan.  Issues. 

THOMAS  BALMER,  Manager  Advertising'  Dept. 
ButtericK  Building',  New  York 

WM.  H.  BUCK,  Western  Advertising  Manager,  200  Monroe  Street,  Chicago 


THIS   SHOWS   A   RATE-CARD   WHERE    SPACE    IS    SOLD   BY  THE   LINE 
IN    PUBLICATIONS    HAVING    THREE    COLUMNS    TO    THE    PAGE, 
AND   WHERE   A   COMBINATION    RATE    IS   ALSO    GIVEN   FOR  ALL 
THREE  PUBLICATIONS  USED   TOGETHER. 
184 


THE  GENERAL  ADVERTISING  AGENCY        185 

than  that  on  which  its  current  rate  is  based,  it  is  cus- 
tomary to  raise  its  rate,  usually  giving  due  notice  to 
both  agents  and  advertisers.  Sometimes  the  privilege 
of  reservation  for  as  long  as  a  year  at  the  old  rate,  is 
allowed  to  actual  advertisers  who  indicate  the  amount 
of  space  they  will  use  in  that  time.  That  is,  it  is 
reserved  on  actual  orders.  Some  publications  even 
allow  it  to  be  reserved  hypothetically  with  the  privi- 
lege of  cancellation,  which  practically  amounts  to  ex- 
tending the  old  rate  for  another  year. 

When  it  comes  to  estimating  from  newspaper  rate- 
cards  the  real  work  of  the  expert  comes  into  play.  A 
knowledge  of  newspaper  rate-cards  is  confined  to  few 
men,  and  consists  more  of  experience  than  it  does  of 
natural  ability.  In  the  office  of  every  large  agency 
handling  newspaper  work  there  are  on  file  lists  of 
rates  applying  to  all  the  newspapers  of  the  country. 
Newspaper  rates  are  flexible,  especially  in  the  case 
of  smaller  newspapers.  Some  newspapers  will  accept 
almost  anything  for  their  space.  It  is  the  business 
of  the  estimator  of  a  newspaper  agency  to  know  just 
how  little  a  newspaper  will  accept,  and  to  devise 
schemes  to  beat  even  that  rate  down  to  a  lower  level. 
It  is  customary  to  send  the  advertising  to  the  news- 
paper accompanied  by  a  check  in  advance,  which  check 
is  a  little  less  than  the  lowest  known  rate  at  which 
that  newspaper  will  accept  business.  In  many  cases 
the  needs  of  the  country  editor  will  lead  him  to  accept 
the  check  and  sell  his  space  at  less  than  he  has  ever 
sold  it  before. 

It  is  also  customary  to  offer  goods  to  the  coun- 
try editor  in  exchange  for  space.  The  self-respect- 
ing, prosperous  paper,  even  though  a  small  one,  will 


186  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

promptly  refuse  all  such  tenders  and  offers.  The 
condition  of  the  newspapers  is  constantly  improving, 
and  such  tactics  are  no  longer  as  successful  as  they 
used  to  be.  In  the  case  of  the  metropolitan  newspa- 
pers these  facts  are  not  true  to  any  great  extent,  al- 
though special  prices  and  cut  rates  are  given  to  large 
advertisers.  Inflexibility  of  rates,  either  in  the  case 
of  magazines  or  newspapers,  has  never  been  absolutely 
established.  There  are  some  experienced  advertisers 
who  say  that  there  is  no  publication  which  does  not 
have  a  special  rate  for  some  one. 

A  newspaper  rate-card  is  a  very  complicated  piece 
of  literature  because  in  addition  to  the  regular  line- 
rate  and  rate  for  special  positions,  there  is  a  long  list 
of  classified  advertising,  sometimes  as  many  as  fifty 
or  sixty  headings,  for  each  of  which  there  is  a  different 
rate.  The  rate-card  of  the  New  York  Sun,  a  news- 
paper known  to  almost  every  one,  is  reproduced  here- 
with as  a  sample  newspaper  rate-card.  The  rate-cards 
of  smaller  newspapers  are  similar  in  form,  but  not  so 
elaborate  : 


Daily  and  Sunday 

ADVERTISING 

In  Effect  August  1.  1903. 
CANCELLING  ALL  OTHER  RATE  CARDS 


GENERAL  DISPLAY  ADVERTISING  Per  Agate  Line. 

RUN  OF  PAPER 40c. 

WOMAN'S  AND  SOCIETY  PAGES 45c. 

LAST  PAGE 45c. 

PAGE  OPPOSITE  EDITORIAL 45c. 

FIRST  AND  LAST  PAGE  OF  SECTIONS..  45c. 


Amusements,  Daily  and  Sunday 50c. 

Art  Sales  and  Exhibitions 25c. 


THE  GENERAL  ADVERTISING  AGENCY  187 

Per  Agate  Line. 

Auction  Sales 20c. 

Automobiles 25c. 

Bankers  and  Brokers'  Cards 40c. 

Bank  Reports 40c. 

Bank  Cards — National,  State,  Savings 40c. 

Birth,  Marriage,  and  Death  Notices $1.00  each 

Bicycles 20c. 

Business  Notices — preceding  Deaths 75c. 

Business  Personals 40c. 

Cemeteries — following  Death  Notices » . . . .  40c. 

Copartnership  Notices 40c. 

Dividends,  Interest,  Elections  and  Meetings 40c. 

Divorce  Notices $1.00  each 

Election  Notices  (Political) 40c. 

Engagement  Notices $1.00  each 

Excursions 40c. 

Excursions — Daily  by  the  Month 25c. 

Financial 40c. 

Hotels — City,  Out  of  Town,  European 20c. 

$4.50  per  line  per  month,  or  E.  O.  D.  two  months. 

Hotels  and  Restaurants 20c. 

$4.50  per  line  per  month,  or  E.  O.  D.  two  months. 

Instruction 20c. 

$4.50  per  line  per  month,  or  E.  O.  D.   two  months. 

Lectures,  Daily  and  Sunday 50c. 

Legal  Notices • 40c. 

Memorial  Resolutions — following  Death  Notices 40c. 

Mining 40c. 

Miscellaneous 40c. 

Medical 40c. 

Official  Legal  Notices 40c. 

Personals 40c. 

Political 50c. 

Proposals 40c. 

Publications 25c. 

Public  Notices.. 40c. 

Railroads 40c. 

Railroad  Time  Tables 40c. 

Railroad  Time  Tables— Daily  by  the  Month 25c. 

Railroad  Time  Tables— Daily  by  the  Year 15c. 

Religious  Notices 20c. 

Resorts — Summer,  Winter,  Autumn,  Spring 20c. 

$4.50  per  line  per  month,  or  E.  O.  D.  two  months. 

Steamboats  and  Steamships 40c. 

Steamboats  and  Steamships'  Time  Tables 40c. 

Steamboats  and  Steamships'  Time  Tables — Monthly.  .  25c. 

Steamboats  and  Steamships'  Time  Tables — Yearly 15c. 

Society  and  Lodge  Notices,  following  Death  Notices .  .  .  40c. 

Special  Notices 50c, 


188  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

Per  Agate  Line. 

Sportsmen's  Goods 20c. 

Trust  Companies 40c. 

Turf 50c. 

Undertakers — following  Death  Notices 40c. 

DISCOUNTS,  TIME— DAILY,  SUNDAY  OR  EVENING.— 

A  discount  of  10%  will  be  allowed  on  general  advertising  that 
pays  the  line  rate  of  40  cents  Daily  and  Sunday  and  30  cents 
Evening  when  an  order  is  given  for  28  lines  or  more  to  be  used 
E.  O.  D.  in  either  paper  within  a  year.  A  discount  of  5%  will  be 
allowed  on  28  lines  or  more  to  be  used  E.  O.  D.  in  six  months,  or  on 
28  lines  or  more  to  be  used  twice  a  week  for  one  year.  A  special 
discount  of  25  '/0  will  be  allowed  when  a  contract  is  made  for  a 
card  in  either  paper  of  10  lines  or  more  to  run  daily  for  one  year 
or  every  other  day  for  one  year  only  under  the  following  classifica- 
tions: Banks,  National,  State  or  Savings;  Bankers  and  Brokers 
and  Trust  Companies. 

DISCOUNTS  FOR  SPACE— DAILY,  SUNDAY  OR  EVE- 
NING.— Time  and  space  discounts  cannot  be  applied  to  the  same 
contract.  Space  discounts  on  lines  to  be  used  within  one  year 
are  as  follows :  On  5,000  lines,  5% ;  on  10,000  lines,  10% ;  on  20,000 
lines,  15%;  on  35,000  lines,  20%. 

NO  DISCOUNTS. — No  discount  is  allowed  on  any  adver- 
tising that  does  not  pay  the  line  rate  of  40  cents  Daily  and  Sunday 
and  30  cents  in  the  Evening.  Discounts  do  not  apply  to  any 
advertising  under  the  following  classifications:  Amusements,  Art 
Sales  and  Exhibitions,  Auction  Sales,  Bicycles,  Sportsmen's 
Goods,  Religious  Reading  Notices,  Legal  Notices,  Proposals, 
Political,  Public  Notices,  Turf,  or  any  advertising  for  which  a 
special  rate  is  made. 

COMBINATION  AND  REPEAT  RATES— DAILY,  SUN- 
DAY, AND  EVENING.— An  advertisement  under  the  classifi- 
cation of  Publications  run  in  the  Daily  and  Evening  Sun  within  a 
week,  no  change  of  copy,  40  cents  a  line  for  both  papers.  Resort 
advertising  to  run  daily  in  Daily,  Sunday  and  Evening  Sun  for 
30  consecutive  times  in  each  or  E.  O.  D.  in  each  within  a  period 
of  two  months,  25  cents  a  line  for  both  papers.  Instruction  ad- 
vertising subject  to  the  same  rate  as  resorts.  Railroad  and  steam- 
ship Time  Tables,  daily  in  each  paper  by  the  year,  25  cents  a  line 
for  both.  Steamboats  and  Excursions,  daily  in  each  paper  for 
the  season,  25  cents  a  line  for  both. 

BROKEN  COLUMNS,  CUTS  AND  DISPLAY.— There  is  no 
extra  charge  in  the  Sun,  Daily,  Sunday  or  Evening,  for  display 
type,  cuts  or  the  breaking  of  column  rules,  except  that  all  adver- 
tising must  be  at  least  28  line  across  two  columns,  50  lines  across 
three  columns,  75  lines  across  four  columns,  and  100  lines  across 
five  or  more  columns.  Advertising  that  does  not  conform  to 
this  rule  will  be  charged  50  per  cent,  extra. 


THE  GENERAL  ADVERTISING  AGENCY        189 

PREFERRED  POSITIONS— DAILY,  SUNDAY,  EVE- 
NING.— Next  to  reading  matter,  5  cents  a  line  extra;  following 
and  alongside  reading  matter  10  cents  a  line  extra;  top  of  column, 
50  per  cent,  extra;  top  surrounded  by  reading  matter,  double 
price;  bottom  of  page  surrounded  by  reading,  50  per  cent,  extra. 
Designated  page,  5  cents  a  line  -extra.  Position  advertising  to 
measure  at  least  28  lines  single  column. 

LOCAL  AND  FOREIGN  ADVERTISING.— General  adver- 
tising that  has  a  New  York  City  address  will  be  treated  as  local 
advertising.  Local  advertising  is  ordinary  New  York  city  busi- 
ness carrying  a  local  address.  General  advertising  is  ordinary- 
display  business  with  a  foreign  address  or  without  any  address. 

PAYMENTS,  ACCOUNTS.— All  bills  are  due  as  soon  as  ser- 
vice is  rendered,  but  for  the  convenience  of  advertisers  and  agents, 
payments  may,  if  mutually  agreed  upon,  be  deferred  to  not  later 
than  the  15th  of  the  month  following  that  in  which  the  adver- 
tising appeared. 

ADVERTISEMENTS  NOT  REPEATED.— Advertisements 
that  are  not  received  in  time  for  all  editions  of  the  Evening  Sun 
will  not  be  carried  in  any  editions  of  the  following  day,  except  as 
the  publisher  may  direct. 

DIMENSIONS.— The  page  of  The  Sun,  Daily,  Sunday,  and 
Evening,  is  16£  inches  wide  and  2 If  inches  deep;  7  columns  to  a 
page,  each  column  300  agate  lines  deep  and  2|  inches  or  31  agate 
ems  wide. 

READING  NOTICES— DAILY  AND  SUNDAY.— Set  in 
agate  with  Adv.  affixed :  First  or  Editorial  Page,  $2.50  per  agate 
line.  Financial  pages,  $2.00  per  agate  line;  run  of  paper,  $1.50 
per  agate  line. 

READING  NOTICES— EVENING.— Set  in  Agate  with  Adv. 
affixed:  First  or  Editorial  or  Financial  Page,  $1.50  per  agate 
line;  run  of  paper,  $1.00  per  agate  line. 

SCALE  OF  MEASUREMENT.— Agate  type  setting  14  lines 
to  the  inch,  about  eight  words  to  the  line,  lower  case,  about  five 
words  to  the  line  in  capitals.  No  count  lines,  agate  measure- 
ment only. 

ILLUSTRATED  SUPPLEMENT,  SATURDAY  EVENING 
SUN. — A  special  discount  of  25%  will  be  allowed  on  all  adver- 
tising of  28  lines  or  more  to  run  for  52  consecutive  insertions. 

CONTRACTS.— All  advertising  to  secure  the  benefit  of  any 
discount  should  be  arranged  for  by  written  contract  before  the 
first  insertion. 

PAGE  RATES. — There  is  no  page,  half-page,  quarter-page 
or  column  rate  in  the  Daily,  Sunday  or  Evening  Sun.  Line 
rates  only. 


190 


MODERN  ADVERTISING 


WANT  PAGE  ADVERTISING  RATES 

ONE,  THREE  AND  SEVEN  TIME  RATES 


1 

insertion 

3  insertions 

7  insertions 

1 

ie.r  Agate 

per  Agate 

per  Agate 

line. 

line. 

line. 

Agents  Wanted  

lOc 

24  c 

42c 

*  Board  and  Boarders  Wanted  

lOc 

24c 

42  c 

Business  Chances  

lOc 

24c 

42c 

Cast-off  Clothing  

lOc 

24c 

42  c 

Clothing  

lOc 

24c 

42  c 

*Country  Board  —  Boarders  

lOc 

24c 

42c 

Dancing  Academies  

lOc 

24  c 

42c 

Dentistry  

lOc 

24  c 

42c 

Dogs  and  Birds  

lOc 

24c 

42c 

Farms—  Sale;  Let;  Rent;  Wanted. 

lOc 

24c 

42c 

For  Sale  

lOc 

24c 

42c 

Furnished  and  Unfurnished  Rooms 

Wanted  or  To  Let  

lOc 

24c 

42c 

Good  Will  and  Interest  

lOc 

24c 

42c 

*Help  Wanted  

lOc 

24c 

42c 

Horses  and  Carriages  

lOc 

24c 

42c 

Houses,   Flats  or   Apartments 

Wanted  or  To  Let  

lOc 

24c 

42c 

*Laundry  Wants  

lOc 

24c 

42c 

Lawyers  

lOc 

24c 

42c 

Loans  

lOc 

24c 

42c 

Lost,  Found  and  Rewards  

lOc 

24c 

42c 

Machinery  

lOc 

24c 

42c 

Millinery  and  Dressmaking  

lOc 

24c 

42c 

Mortgage  Loans  

lOc 

24c 

42c 

Musical  

lOc 

24c 

42c 

Opticians  and  Optical  Goods  

lOc 

24c 

42c 

Patents  

lOc 

24c 

42c 

Pianos  and  Organs  

lOc 

24c 

42c 

*Professional  Situations  Wanted  .  . 

lOc 

24c 

42c 

Purchase  and  Exchange  

lOc 

24c 

42c 

Real  Estate  

lOc 

24c 

42c 

Salesmen  Wanted  

lOc 

24c 

42c 

*  Situations  Wanted  

5c 

12c 

21c 

Storage  

lOc 

24c 

42c 

Typewriters  

lOc 

24c 

42c 

Watches  and  Jewelry  

lOc 

24c 

42c 

Yachts  and  Sailboats  

lOc 

24c 

42c 

Double  price    charged  on  entire  advertisement  if  not  set 
solid  in  agate  type,  except  classifications  marked  *. 


THE  GENERAL  ADVERTISING  AGENCY        191 

No  advertisement  taken  for  less  than  the  price  of  two  lines. 

Insertions  must  be  consecutive  to  secure  3  and  7  time  rate. 

Count  8  words  set  in -agate  to  a  line  for  Want  page  adver- 
tising. Count  5  words  of  agate  caps  to  a  line. 

Advertisements  ordered  to  appear  under  another  classifi- 
cation than  the  one  to  which  they  properly  belong  must  be 
charged  at  the  rate  of  the  higher  classification,  or  the  general 
advertising  rate  of  paper  when  rate  of  classification  to  which 
they  belong  is  lower  than  the  general  advertising  rate. 


There  .is  need  for  what  is  known  as  a  flat  rate 
among  newspapers,  but  no  movement  in  that  direction 
has  ever  been  successful.  A  flat  rate  is  a  regular 
rate  per  line  per  thousand  of  circulation  for  news- 
papers in  the  same  class,  having  the  same  rate  and 
the  same  variations  from  that  rate.  Newspaper  space 
is  frequently  sold  in  quantities  of  a  thousand  lines, 
five  thousand  lines,  twenty  thousand  lines  and  other 
amounts  to  be  used  within  a  given  time,  for  which 
there  are  always  special  reductions. 

An  advertising  agency  in  sending  advertising  to 
a  magazine  or  a  newspaper  uses  a  certain  form.  Each 
agency  has  its  own  form,  but  these  are  substantially 
the  same,  the  conditions  being  only  those  peculiar  to 
that  agency's  method  of  doing  business.  We  repro- 
duce on  the  next  page  a  form  which  is  used  by  one 
agency  for  placing  its  business.  It  is  only  necessary 
that  all  of  the  facts  about  the  insertion  of  the  adver- 
tisement should  be  entered  upon  the  order  and  made 
a  part  of  the  order. 

After  advertising  has  been  placed  and  the  agency 
begins  to  receive  the  publications  in  which  that  partic- 
ular advertising  appears,  it  is  necessary  to  check  up 
this  advertising  to  form  a  permanent  record  of  its 
insertion.  The  methods  used  for  checking  vary  ac- 
14 


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THE  GENERAL  ADVERTISING  AGENCY        193 

cording  to  the  size  of  the  agency  and  the  nature  of  its 
business.  An  agency  which  handles  a  great  deal  of 
newspaper  advertising  requires  a  large  force  of  check- 
ers. Such  an  agency  receives  every  morning  all  of 
the  daily  newspapers  published  in  the  country,  and 
each  one  of  them  has  to  be  looked  over  carefully  to 
be  checked.  The  checker  must  notice  the  date,  the 
name  of  the  paper,  the  position  of  the  advertisement, 
the  number  of  lines  it  occupies,  whether  all  instruc- 
tions as  to  typesetting,  display,  "  keying  "  and  such 
things  have  been  followed,  and  all  these  things  are 
entered  upon  the  checking  sheet. 

The  checking  of  magazine  advertising  is  not  so 
complicated  a  process,  but  it  must  be  done  with  the 
same  carefulness.  A  form  for  the  checking  of  maga- 
zine advertising  is  reproduced  herewith.  It  varies 
somewhat  from  a  form  which  would  be  used  for 
newspaper  advertising,  but  it  is  sufficiently  accurate 
to  show  what  facts  are  recorded  in  checking. 

These,  then,  are  the  tools  of  the  advertising 
agency:  A  complete  set  of  rate-cards,  forms  for 
placing  advertising  and  forms  for  checking  up  the 
insertions  of  advertising. 

The  size  of  the  agency  depends  upon  the  volume 
of  business  it  does  and  its  character.  A  complete 
agency  such  as  that  of  K.  W.  Ayer  &  Son,  of  Phila- 
delphia, places  magazine,  newspaper,  street-car  and 
bill-board  advertising,  and  checks  it  all.  Such  an  or- 
ganization has,  in  addition  to  a  complete  office  force, 
a  large  staff  of  solicitors  who  constantly  call  on  cus- 
tomers. It  maintains  offices  in  other  large  cities.  It 
is  founded  on  the  theory  that  professional  service  can 
be  built  up  into  a  great  and  complex  organization 


194  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

the  same  as  would  be  done  in  the  case  of  a  manu- 
facturing plant. 

The  fact  that  the  small  agency  depending  more 
upon  the  service  than  the  size  of  its  equipment,  con- 
tinues to  do  business  successfully  in  spite  of  the  large 
and  completely  organized  agencies,  proves  that  it  is 
by  no  means  a  settled  fact  in  the  minds  of  the  adver- 
tiser which  it  is  that  affords  him  the  greatest  assist- 
ance in  his  advertising. 

There  is  a  tendency  on  the  part  of  many  of  the 
old-time  agencies  to  degenerate  into  a  loose  organiza- 
tion of  individual  agencies,  each  solicitor  amounting 
to  an  agency  in  himself  as  far  as  his  ability  enables 
him  to  go.  Such  an  agency  has  no  central  policy,  no 
distinct  style,  no  complete  service.  Each  solicitor 
shifts  for  himself,  and  the  destinies  of  the  advertiser 
are  in  the  hands  of  the  solicitor  who  takes  his  order.1 

Advertisers  may  be  roughly  divided  into  two 
classes — the  old  advertiser  and  the  new.  The  first 
class  consists  of  those  who  have  been  advertising  for 
a  long  period  of  time  and  have  reached  a  point  where 
they  appropriate  annual  amounts  of  money  reaching 

1  The  actual  number  of  advertising  agencies  in  the  United 
States  is  problematical.  The  business  directory  of  New  York  city 
alone  gives  260  agencies  in  that  city.  This,  of  course,  includes 
every  kind  of  an  advertising  agency,  good,  bad  and  indifferent. 
Some  of  these  are  certainly  not  even  worthy  of  the  name  as  their 
business  is  very  limited,  sometimes  being  confined  to  placing  one 
account  in  one  or  two  newspapers  or  something  like  that. 

A  list  of  advertising  agents  compiled  by  an  advertising  publica- 
tion shows  that  there  are  about  460  agencies  in  this  country  which 
are  recognized  by  the  managers  of  publications,  but  this  list  also 
includes  a  great  many  small  and  local  advertising  agencies.  It  is 
safe  to  say  that  there  are  not  more  than  fifty  advertising  agencies 
of  national  scope  which  are  seriously  considered  by  advertisers. 


THE  GENERAL  ADVERTISING  AGENCY        195 

up  into  hundreds  of  thousands  of  dollars  as  regu- 
larly as  they  make  appropriations  for  rent,  invest- 
ment, salaries  or  raw  materials.  This  appropriation 
is  placed  with  some  leading  agency  which  proceeds  to 
invest  it  on  a  plan  usually  arranged  between  the  agent 
and  the  customer.  It  is  a  part  of  the  advertising 
agent's  work  to  suggest  new  plans  for  using  this 
money,  although  a  certain  amount  of  it  will  be  used 
in  the  old  channels  such  as  magazines,  trade  papers, 
street-cars,  bill-boards  and  printed  matter,  but  it  is 
the  agent's  place  to  suggest  new  methods  of  using  these 
old  mediums,  new  designs,  new  ideas,  new  policies  and 
new  plans  of  selling  in  connection  with  the  regular 
sales  department.  The  extent  to  which  an  advertiser 
will  go  in  work  of  this  kind  depends  entirely  upon 
the  ability  of  the  agent. 

To  this  class  of  advertisers  belong  all  the  well- 
known  names  in  the  advertising  world — the  great 
packers,  Swift,  Armour,  Fairbanks,  and  Libby;  the 
breakfast-food  and  cereal  manufacturers,  H-O,  Pos- 
tum  Cereal,  Force,  Quaker  Oats,  Grape  Nuts,  Cream 
of  Wheat,  and  Shredded  Wheat;  the  soap-makers, 
Ivory,  Pears  and  Colgate ;  the  brewers,  Pabst  and 
Schlitz;  the  shoemakers,  Douglas  and  Bliss  (Regal), 
and  the  clothiers,  Hart,  Schaffner  &  Marx,  Sykes  and 
Kirschbaum.  Such  houses  spend  anywhere  from  one 
hundred  and  fifty  to  seven  hundred  and  fifty  thousand 
dollars  annually  in  advertising.  Enoch  Morgan's 
Sons'  advertising  expense  for  Sapolio  amounts  to 
something  like  one  thousand  dollars  a  day. 

The  other  class  of  advertiser  is  the  man  who  has 
a  new  article  to  exploit,  or  an  article  which  has  never 
been  advertised.  Such  an  advertiser  is  usually  inex- 


196  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

perienced.  He  may  be  a  single  individual ;  the  inven- 
tor, for  instance,  of  a  new  article ;  or  a  new  company 
may  be  formed  around  the  invention  to  secure  capital 
to  advertise  it  properly. 

In  any  case  the  advertiser  goes  to  some  adverti- 
sing agency  to  which  he  has  been  recommended.  Here 
is  where  the  advertising  agent  exercises  his  higher 
mission,  which  is  that  of  business  counsel. 

The  question  of  marketing  the  product  is  then  dis- 
cussed thoroughly,  territories  are  considered,  mediums 
explained,  selling  facilities  planned  and  distribution 
arranged  for  by  the  advertising  agent.  He  then  rec- 
ommends an  advertising  plan  calling  for  a  certain 
appropriation  unless  his  customer  has  already  decided 
just  how  much  money  is  available  for  advertising. 
In  presenting  this  plan  to  his  client,  he  goes  into  de- 
tails in  proportion  to  his  customer's  knowledge  or 
ignorance  of  advertising.  In  the  case  of  a  new  adver- 
tiser it  is  necessary,  generally,  to  explain  just  what  is 
to  be  done,  how  the  money  is  to  be  expended,  and  why. 
A  very  large  appropriation  would  be  necessary  for 
advertising  over  the  entire  country,  using  maga- 
zines and  newspapers,  probably  both  street-cars  and 
posters,  and  certainly  a  great  deal  of  general  printed 
matter. 

The  best  way  to  describe  the  preliminary  work  of 
an  agency  for  a  prospective  client  is  perhaps  to  take 
a  particular  case  similar  to  one  occurring  frequently 
in  general  advertising  work.  ~No  one  class  of  goods 
is  so  widely  advertised  or  has  so  large  a  sale  as 
food,  and  especially  what  are  generally  known  as 
breakfast  foods. 

We  will  suppose  that  an  inventor  of  food  combina- 


THE  GENERAL  ADVERTISING  AGENCY       197 

tions  in  Battle  Creek  has  devised  a  new  prepared 
cereal  for  breakfast  use.  Having  secured  his  formula 
arid  built  a  plant  for  its  manufacture,  he  goes  to  the 
advertising  agency  to  find  a  market  for  his  output. 
The  first  requirement  is  a  name.  The  law  decides 
that  a  name  in  order  to  be  protected  by  copyright 
must  be  a  coined  word — that  is,  not  a  word  common 
to  the  language.  No  advertiser  can  take  a  word  in 
common  English  use  and  forbid  any  one  else  to  use  it. 
A  coined  word  is  a  word  made  up  expressly  as  a  name 
for  a  particular  article  as  a  means  of  identifying  it. 
It  can  be  protected  by  copyright  so  that  no  other  man 
can  use  it  as  applied  to  that  particular  article.  Sa- 
polio,  Uneeda,  Zu  Zu  are  all  examples  of  coined  words. 
Force,  on  the  contrary,  is  a  word  in  common  use  and 
can  not  be  protected  by  copyright. 

Names  are  often  made  in  various  ways.  Some- 
times they  are  inaccurate  spellings  of  well-known 
words,  such  as  E-Z  Bed.  Sometimes  they  are  initials 
of  the  article  or  of  the  firm  as  H-O  for  Hornby's  Oats ; 
R  &  G,  the  name  of  a  widely  advertised  corset,  the 
initials  being  those  of  the  firm  which  makes  it — Roth 
&  Goldsmith.  The  requirements  of  a  good  name  are 
that  it  shall  be  euphonious,  easily  remembered,  and 
where  possible  appropriate.  Many  names  of  widely 
advertised  articles  are,  however,  grotesque,  meaning- 
less, hard  to  remember,  uncouth,  and  in  every  way 
ill  fitted  to  serve  the  purpose. 

Next  to  the  name  comes  the  package.  This  is 
important.  An  advertiser  tries  to  have  his  article 
considered  by  the  dealer  as  attractive  shelf -goods.  A 
package,  especially  for  a  food,  should  be  dainty  and 
appetizing,  so  as  to  produce  a  good  impression.  De« 


198  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

signs  are  made  very  carefully  and  a  color  scheme 
selected,  the  name  displayed  in  such  a  way  as  to  catch 
the  eye  of  any  one  observing  it  upon  the  shelf  of  the 
dealer.  The  size  of  the  package  is  determined,  or  the 
carton,  as  it  is  called,  which  will  hold  the  quantity 
to  be  retailed  at  a  certain  price.  In  prepared  break- 
fast foods,  for  instance,  the  package  holds  two  pounds, 


A  horse  is  different  from  a  man.      He 

likes  what  is  good   for  him.      Feed   your  The    best    Sustenance    for     a 

horse  The   H-O   Co.'s   Horse  Feed.      He          hnPQP  ;«  The  H  O  Tr» '« 
will  take  to  it,  and  it  will  make  a  better 
horse  of  him,  Feed. 


THE   SILHOUETTE   EFFECTIVELY  USED    IN    NEWSPAPER 
ADVERTISING. 

and  the  price  varies  from  ten  to  fifteen  cents.  One 
to  two  dozen  cartons  are  packed  in  a  case.  A  price 
is  fixed  at  which  the  factory  product  can  be  sold  to 
the  jobber  at  a  profit  to  the  manufacturer,  allowing 
for  a  liberal  advertising  appropriation.  The  jobber 
adds  a  small  profit  for  himself,  usually  about  five 
per  cent.,  and  sells  to  the  dealer.  The  dealer's  price 
on  an  advertised  article  is  nearly  always  fixed  by  the 
advertiser.  For  instance,  in  a  breakfast  food  to  be 
sold  at  fifteen  cents  for  each  two-pound  package,  the 
dealer  would  pay  $2.75  per  case  containing  two  dozen 


THE  GENERAL  ADVERTISING  AGENCY        199 
packages.      The  cases  would  cost  the  jobber  about 


The  profit  to  the  manufacturer  would  consist  of 
the  difference  between  the  selling  price  from  which 
has  been  deducted  the  cost  of  manufacture  and  the  cost 
of  advertising.  The  cost  of  advertising  as  related  to 
the  cost  of  manufacture,  of  course,  varies  largely  ac- 
cording to  the  article. 

All  of  these  things  have  to  be  studied  carefully, 
and  in  the  case  of  a  new  advertiser  the  agent's  advice 
is  helpful.  He  has  had  experience  in  similar  cases 
and  knows  what  percentage  of  profit  will  be  perma- 
nently safe. 

These  things  being  finally  determined,  the  next 
step  is  the  actual  advertising.  Often  a  newly  formed 
company  has  not  capital  enough,  or  upon  the  advice 
of  the  advertising  agency,  it  will  decide  that  the  capi- 
tal available  is  not  sufficient  for  the  purpose.  Then 
the  advertising  agency  secures  additional  capital  for 
the  company,  either  by  selling  stock  privately,  or  ad- 
vertising publicly  to  small  purchasers  the  sale  of  this 
stock.  The  necessary  amount  having  been  secured, 
the  advertising  agent  will  then  allot  this  among  maga- 
zines, street-cars,  painted  signs,  bill-boards,  or  what- 
ever mediums  will,  in  his  judgment,  produce  the 
quickest  results.  He  will  also  make  an  allowance  for 
a  limited  number  of  trade  papers,  for  printed  matter 
which  will  be  sent  to  the  retailers  and  also  matter 
popular  in  its  tone  for  general  distribution  to  the 
public. 

There  is  almost  no  limit  to  the  variety  of  com- 
binations which  may  be  made  on  any  given  appro- 
priation, and  it  is  in  this  work  that  the  ability  of 


200  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

an  advertising  agency  is  displayed.  While  fortunes 
have  been  lost  on  advertising,  it  seems  that  the  greatest 
percentage  of  failures  have  been  due  to  bad  judgment 
displayed  in  selecting  advertising  mediums  and  plan- 
ning the  work. 

The  modern  method  of  presenting  the  advertising 
plan  to  a  prospective  advertiser  differs  materially 
from  that  formerly  employed.  Then  the  personal 
element  was  a  large  factor.  The  personal  magnetism 
of  the  solicitor  and  the  salesmanship  he  displayed  in 
talking  with  his  prospective  client,  together  with  his 
list  of  publications  and  their  rates,  generally  settled 
matters,  and  often  do  to-day. 

But  agencies  which  are  placing  their  strongest 
claim  for  business  on  the  professional  side  of  their 
work,  whose  main  plea  is  that  of  personal  service,  who 
steadily  resist  the  temptation  to  employ  a  staff  of 
solicitors  and  build  up  a  mushroom  business,  such 
agents  depend  more  upon  the  careful  study  and  presen- 
tation of  the  case  than  upon  their  personality. 

The  most  important  development  of  modern 
agency  work  is  the  attention  it  is  giving  to  the  ad- 
vertising of  staples.  Of  these  staples  the  manufac- 
ture and  marketing  of  textiles  is  the  greatest  field. 
Thomas  Balmer  is  responsible  for  a  very  definite 
movement  having  for  its  object  the  interesting  of  the 
manufacturers  of  textiles  in  the  possibilities  of  ad- 
vertising. In  this  he  has  had  cooperation  from  many 
agencies  which  have  profited  by  increased  business. 

As  a  pertinent  illustration,  not  only  of  the  pos- 
sibilities of  textile  advertising,  but  also  of  the  manner 
in  which  a  thoroughly  equipped  advertising  agent 
presents  a  plan  of  campaign  to  a  prospective  adver- 


THE  GENERAL  ADVERTISING  AGENCY       201 

tiser,  an  actual  letter  sent  by  an  agent  to  one  of 
the  largest  textile  corporations  in  the  world  is  repro- 
duced. The  plan  was  based  upon  an  initial  appro- 
priation of  $100,000,  to  be  spent  within  a  year,  as 
shown  by  the  following  estimate.  The  actual  name 
of  the  corporation  is  disguised  under  the  style  of  The 
United  Textile  Company : 

ESTIMATE  FOR  THE  UNITED  TEXTILE  COMPANY 


Net. 

Gross 

Ladies'  Home  Journal, 

L  col.    12  times. 

$14,400 

00 

Butterick  Trio, 

L    "      12     " 

11,457 

00 

Saturday  Evening  Post,  - 

I  page  12     " 

5,400 

00 

Collier's  Weekly, 

t    "      12     " 

$3,780.00 

Youth's  Companion, 

;      "          12        " 

6,048.00 

Woman's  Home  Comp'n  |    "      12     " 

4,131.00 

Christian  Herald, 

[    "      12     " 

2,268.00 

Century, 

L  col.    12     " 

2,250.00 

Scribner's, 

"      12     " 

2,700 

00 

Leslie's, 

"      12     " 

2,721.60 

McClure's, 

"      12     " 

4,492 

so 

Munsey's, 

"      12     " 

5,400 

00 

Harpers', 

"      12     " 

2,430.00 

Review  of  Reviews. 

"      12     " 

2,160.00 

World's  Work, 

"      12     " 

1,296.00 

Cosmopolitan, 

(i      ^2     " 

3,870.72 

Good  Housekeeping, 

"      12     " 

1,836.00 

Outing, 

"      12     " 

1,263.60 

Everybody's,                     1    "      12     " 

5,100.00 

Metropolitan, 

L    '       12 

2,700.00 

Harpers'  Bazar, 

I    "      12     " 

1,935.36 

Ladies'  World, 

[  page  12     " 

3,780.00 

McCall's  Magazine, 

[    "      12     " 

3,078.00 

Life, 

I    "      12     " 

680.40 

Literary  Digest, 

I  col.    12     " 

816.48 

$49,895.16 

Commission  10*% 

4,989  .  52 

54,884 

68 

$100,984 

.48 

202  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

MR.  JONAS  O.  BROWNE, 

Secretary  and  General  Manager, 

The  United  Textile  Company,  New  York. 

Dear  Sir:  This  letter  is  an  answer  to  the  question: 

WHY  SHOULD  THE  UNITED  TEXTILE  COMPANY 
ADVERTISE? 

Advertising  has  but  one  object,  and  that  is  profitably 
increasing  the  sales  of  the  product  advertised. 

The  United  Textile  Company  is  making  a  staple  product, 
one  of  the  most  staple  in  the  world.  Clothing  is  second  only 
to  food  as  a  necessary  article  of  demand,  and  woolen  clothing 
for  both  men  and  women  comes  first  in  importance. 

Last  year  you  produced,  according  to  your  own  figures, 
forty  million  yards  of  cloth.  The  year  before  your  gross  in- 
come is  given  at  thirty-five  million  odd  dollars.  The  average 
value  of  your  product  is  probably  about  a  dollar  a  yard. 

It  is  estimated  that  the  value  of  domestic  woolens  made 
during  1902  was  $297,000,000  or  94  per  cent,  of  all  the  woolens 
used  in  this  country,  the  other  six  per  cent,  being  imported. 

According  to  these  figures,  which  are  correct  enough  for 
our  purpose,  you  are  making  only  one-eighth  or  12^  per  cent, 
of  the  total  amount  of  domestic  woolens  produced.  There- 
fore, you  have  a  field  in  this  other  seven-eighths,  a  part  of 
which  you  certainly  can  cultivate  by  proper  advertising. 

The  textile  industries  have  not  been  so  ready  to  seize  the 
advantage  of  advertising  as  a  builder  of  new  business  as 
have  the  great  companies  making  food-products,  such  as 
biscuits,  packing-house  by-products  and  breakfast  foods. 
Yet  we  believe  that  the  advertising  of  textile  goods  is  the 
greatest  possible  field  of  the  future.  We  believe  that  your 
company  has  within  its  grasp  the  chance  of  creating  the 
greatest  advertising  success  in  advertising  history. 

The  object  of  your  advertising  should  be  to  teach  Amer- 
ican men  and  women  to  wear  American-made  fabrics.  The 
advertising  should  be  directed  against  imported  fabrics.  It 


THE  GENERAL  ADVERTISING  AGENCY       203 

should  exploit  especially  the  superior  fabrics  of  the  United 
Textile  Company.  The  American  public  should  be  taught 
that  American  woolens  are  just  as  good  as  or  better  than 
the  imported.  Men  and  women  should  be  educated  so  that 
when  about  to  buy  a  suit,  coat,  cloak,  wrap  or  any  other 
article  of  clothing  which  can  be  made  from  your  goods,  they 
will  insist  upon  the  United  Textile  Company's  products,  and 
they  will  see  to  it  that  the  United  Textile  Company's  trade- 
mark is  on  them — whether  the  article  or  garment  is  made  to 
order  or  ready-made. 

Your  Advertising  Must  Be  Educational 

The  public  should  be  taught  as  far  as  possible  the  names 
and  characters  of  different  woolen  goods,  especially  the  names 
of  new,  seasonable  fabrics,  but  above  and  beyond  all  that, 
they  should  be  .taught  that  the  United  Textile  Company's 
trade-mark  stands  for  quality,  and  that  the  United  Textile 
Company  is  behind  that  trade-mark  to  produce  the  best  goods 
that  can  be  made. 

No  layman  is  able  to  distinguish  the  different  grades  of 
cloth.  The  manufacturing  clothing  business  has  been  one  of 
the  most  profitable  in  the  world,  simply  because  the  average 
man  or  woman  who  wears  clothing  is  unable  to  discriminate 
the  fabrics.  He  is  at  the  mercy  of  the  tailor  or  of  the  retail 
dealer.  As  far  as  making  the  goods  is  concerned,  he  has 
the  tailor  or  manufacturing  clothier  to  refer  to,  but  for  the 
fabric  itself  he  has  nothing  but  the  tailor's  or  clothier's  word. 

A  trade-mark  upon  cloth  gives  the  same  guarantee  of 
quality  that  it  does  upon  other  trade-marked,  advertised 
goods.  A  trade-mark  has  no  value  until  it  is  advertised. 
It  begins  to  be  advertised  just  as  soon  as  good  goods  go  out 
bearing  the  mark,  but  such  advertising  is  not  far-reaching 
enough.  Advertising  which  stamps  the  mark  upon  the  mind 
of  every  man  and  woman  who  could  be  a  purchaser  of  woolen 
goods,  is  the  only  advertising  which  will  make  the  trade-mark 
of  the  United  Textile  Company  its  most  valuable  asset.  It 
is  probably  unnecessary  to  call  your  attention  to  the  value 


204  MODERN   ADVERTISING 

of  such  trade-marks  as  that  of  Walter  Baker  &  Company, 
Limited,  Royal  Baking  Powder  Company,  National  Biscuit 
Company,  and  others  of  national  and  international  note. 

It  could  be  answered  that  these  are  all  food-products,  but 
there  is  nothing  in  advertising  itself  that  confines  the  value 
of  trade-marks  to  trade-marks  of  foods.  It  is  simply  that  the 
food  people  have  been  the  first  to  perceive  the  great  profits 
to  be  obtained  from  publicity.  The  next  step  is  to  come 
from  the  textile  industries,  and  no  one  company  has  the  pos- 
sibilities and  the  goods  to  realize  this  so  quickly  and  so  greatly 
as  the  United  Textile  Company. 

At  present  the  layman — that  is,  the  consumer  who  goes 
to  his  tailor  to  buy  a  suit — picks  out  the  fabric  entirely  from 
the  design  and  color.  He  does  the  same  thing  when  he  buys 
a  suit  ready-made.  Sometimes  he  goes  by  the  label  of  the 
manufacturing  clothier.  We  have  been  assured  by  a  manu- 
facturing clothier  of  wide  experience  and  undoubted  hon- 
esty, that  a  very  large  percentage  of  the  fabrics  used  by  even 
leading  and  high-priced  tailors,  recommended  to  the  customer 
as  imported,  are  in  reality  domestic,  probably  the  greater 
portion  of  them  your  own  products. 

This  in  itself  is  no  reflection  upon  your  goods,  but  if  we 
can  teach  the  American  public  that  American-made  fabrics  are 
just  as  good  for  the  purpose,  under  their  own  name,  as  im- 
ported goods,  and  if  we  can  appeal,  not  only  to  the  public's 
common  sense,  good  judgment  and  pocketbook,  but  to  its 
patriotism  as  well,  then  a  man  will  go  to  his  tailor  and  demand 
the  American-made  products,  and  especially  those  of  the 
United  Textile  Company,  because  of  your  advertising. 

The  writer  knows  from  actual  experience  that  your  serges 
offer  every  quality  that  he  can  get  in  the  imported  serge. 
This  is  undoubtedly  true  of  other  products.  It  is  also  equally 
true  that  the  American  man  does  not  know  this,  that  he  is 
hypnotized  by  the  fetish  "imported,"  and  pays  double  the 
price  for  something  no  better. 

You  have  several  unusual  advantages.  You  have  the 
organization  both  for  manufacturing  and  selling.  You  have 
capital  to  advertise  intelligently  and  sufficiently  to  get  the 


A  MODERN  CLOTHING  ADVERTISEMENT  DESIGNED  BY  ONE  OF  THE  BEST- 
KNOWN  ARTISTS.  IT  REPRESENTS  THE  LATEST  PROGRESS  IN  THE 
DESIGNING  FOR  CLOTHING  ADVERTISEMENTS. 


206  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

best  results.  You  have  products  which  will  bear  advertising. 
You  are  in  position  to  increase  your  sales.  The  field  is  there 
as  shown  by  the  actual  consumption  of  American  woolens. 
You  are  a  foremost,  representative  American  industry,  making 
a  product  which  never  can  be  superseded.  Styles  and  designs 
may  come  and  go,  but  woolen  fabrics  will  be  used  forever. 
It  is  impossible  to  conceive  any  new  invention,  any  whim  of 
fashion,  any  change  in  habits  which  will  do  away  with  the 
use  of  woolen  fabrics  for  clothing  for  men  and  women.  You 
have  the  broadest  and  strongest  foundation  upon  which  to 
build  a  great  advertising  asset. 


HOW   THE  ADVERTISING  SHOULD  BE  DONE 
Trade-Mai  k 

It  is  essential  that  you  should  have  a  broad,  general  trade- 
mark to  be  used  upon  the  entire  output  of  products  of  the 
United  Textile  Company.  This  trade-mark  should  be  general 
in  the  same  way  that  the  In-er-seal  trade-mark  is  general  to 
the  products  of  the  National  Biscuit  Company. 

Each  pattern  or  each  general  division  of  goods  could  and 
possibly  should  have  an  individual  trade-mark,  or  at  least  a 
name,  presumably  a  coined  word,  which  would  be  used  in 
connection  with  the  general  trade-mark  of  the  United  Textile 
Company. 

The  way  in  which  this  should  be  worked  out  is  a  matter 
of  detail.  The  method  of  trade-marking  the  goods,  whether 
the  trade-mark  should  be  stamped  on  the  ;loth,  woven  into 
the  selvage,  pasted  on  the  bolt,  will  depend  u  oon  the  practical 
question  of  manufacturing  and  convenience,  A  very  novel 
method  has  just  been  invented  for  producing  a  trade-mark 
upon  textile  fabrics,  which  we  will  be  very  glad  to  explain  to 
you  in  detail  if  you  are  not  familiar  with  it.  This  may  or 
may  not  be  practical  from  the  point  of  view  of  your  own 
experience. 

Our  suggestion   is  that  the  trade-mark,  presumably  in 


THE  GENERAL  ADVERTISING  AGENCY       207 

three  colors,  these  colors  being  the  red,  white,  and  blue  of  the 
national  colors,  be  reproduced  upon  the  outside  of  the  bolt, 
on  the  cloth  direct,  or  on  a  label,  the  particular  name  of  each 
fabric  to  be  woven  into  the  selvage,  where  selvage  occurs,  fol- 
lowed by  the  letters  "U.  T.  Co." 

Meanwhile  the  first  important  step  in  general  advertising 
is  the  securing  of  the  trade-mark.  We  are  offering  a  number 
of  suggestions  based  upon  several  specific  ideas. 

The  first  idea  consists  of  an  individual  monogram  of  the 
letters,  "U.  T.  Co."  Several  of  these  trade-marks  show  all 
the  letters  of  your  entire  name  interwoven  in  one  monogram. 

The  second  is  a  trade-mark  combining  your  name  and 
monogram  in  connection  with  a  patriotic  emblem,  such  as 
a  star,  shield,  or  pennant. 

The  third  shows  your  monogram  in  combination  with 
something  having  to  do  with  wool,  as  the  sheep's  head. 

The  fourth  is  a  combination  of  your  monogram,  the  pa- 
triotic idea  and  the  wool  idea. 

The  fifth  is  a  modification,  showing  sheep's  shears  as  be- 
ing typical  of  the  wool  industry. 

These  five  classes  offer  several  designs  each,  all  of  which 
are  herewith  submitted. 

Appropriation 

The  amount  of  money  that  you  should  spend  can  be  based 
upon  several  things — upon  a  certain  percentage  of  your  gross 
business  or  profits,  or  upon  the  plan  of  campaign  suggested 
to  you,  which  requires  a  certain  amount  to  accomplish  certain 
things — but  the  size  of  the  appropriation  that  you  are  willing 
to  devote  to  this  advertising  must  be  determined  first. 

We  are  recommending  a  number  of  plans  of  magazine 
advertising  based  upon  various  propositions  running  from 
twenty-five  thousand  to  one  hundred  thousand  dollars 
and  over. 

The  average  appropriation  of  advertisers  doing  a  national 
business  runs  from  two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  to  a 
million  dollars,  of  which  usually  about  one  hundred  thousand 
15 


208  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

dollars  is  spent  in  the  magazines,  although  some  companies 
use  as  high  as  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  dollars. 

It  is  generally  admitted  that  the  National  Biscuit  Company 
has  made  a  tremendous  success  of  its  advertising.  The  gross 
business  of  this  company  in  1902  was  forty  million  dollars, 
and  the  net  earnings  about  three  million  six  hundred  thou- 
sand dollars.  Their  advertising  appropriation  is  probably 
about  $750,000  a  year,  which  is  an  expenditure  of  less  than 
one-fiftieth  of  their  total  business,  and  only  twenty  per  cent, 
of  their  net  earnings. 

If  the  United  Textile  Company  should  spend  twenty  per 
cent,  of  its  net  earnings,  the  appropriation  would  be  about 
$700,000,  or  two  per  cent,  of  the  gross  business. 

We  do  not  expect  you  to  appropriate  any  such  sum  at 
the  start,  but  we  firmly  believe  that  if  you  go  into  advertising 
as  you  should  go  into  it,  the  time  will  not  be  long  before 
you  are  spending  that  amount  of  money  and  thereby  greatly 
increasing  your  present  volume  of  profits.  We  do  not  believe 
that  any  director  of  the  United  Textile  Company  would 
hesitate  an  instant  to  spend  $700,000  in  advertising  if  he 
could  add  a  million  dollars  to  the  net  profits  of  the  business 
thereby.  Neither  do  we  believe  that  any  man  familiar  with 
the  actual  working  of  advertising  doubts  for  a  minute  that 
this  thing  is  possible. 

Among  the  companies  whose  names  are  known  to  you, 
who  are  spending  as  much  as  $750,000  a  year  in  advertising, 
we  may  mention  the  following  : 

Royal  Baking  Powder  Company. Baking  Powder. 

Postum  Cereal  Company Grape  Nuts  and  Postum. 

Force  Food  Company Force. 

N.  K.  Fairbank  Company Fairy  Soap  and  Gold  Dust. 

Swift  &  Company Premium  Hams  and  Bacon. 

Ralston  Mills Food-Products. 

Enoch  Morgan's  Sons Sapolio. 

Proctor  &  Gamble  Company Ivory  Soap. 

Armour  &  Company Extract  of  Beef. 

Whatever  your  appropriation,  it  must  be  large  enough  to 
accomplish  your  purpose.  One  insertion  in  every  magazine 


THE  GENERAL  ADVERTISING  AGENCY       209 

of  the  country,  even  of  pages,  will  not  be  a  profitable  invest- 
ment. Neither  will  three.  Advertising  of  your  character 
must  be  based  upon  continuous  advertising  year  after  year, 
every  month.  You  need  not  necessarily  use  the  complete 
list  of  good  mediums,  but  even  if  you  use  only  a  few  maga- 
zines, your  spaces  should  be  large  enough  to  tell  your  story 
and  to  be  seen,  and  should  count  on  appearing  in  every  issue 
of  every  magazine. 

If  you  will  take  a  copy  of  any  standard  American  maga- 
zine and  look  through  it,  you  will  see  that  the  big  advertising 
successes  are  using  large  spaces,  generally  pages,  and  are 
appearing  in  each  issue  of  every  magazine  they  use.  Sapolio, 
Ivory  Soap,  Gold  Dust,  the  Ralston  Food  products,  Cream 
of  Wheat,  Colgate's  Soaps,  as  well  as  the  clothing  manu- 
facturers, Hart,  Schaffner  &  Marx,  Kuppenheimer,  Sykes  & 
Kirschbaum,  are  all  using  page  copy.  They  are  using  a 
comparatively  large  number  of  magazines,  and  what  is  more 
important,  they  are  appearing  in  each  issue  of  each  magazine. 

Neither  we  nor  any  other  advertising  agency  can  consent 
to  a  proposition  like  yours  being  advertised  on  anything  but 
a  plan  which  calls  for  enough  money  to  carry  it  out  to  success. 
If  you  use  only  ten  publications,  you  should  use  these  ten 
publications  for  at  least  a  year,  and  you  should  use  at  least 
pages,  except  in  the  large  women's  publications  and  weeklies, 
where  a  quarter  of  a  page  will  be  sufficient  for  good  display. 


Specific  Forms  of  Advertising 

1.  Magazine  advertising. 

2.  Literature  of  all  sorts. 

3.  Street  car  cards. 

4.  Posters. 

Magazine  Advertising  is  the  backbone  of  your  sort  of 
work.  Magazines  unquestionably  lead  in  the  establishing  of  a 
trade-mark  and  in  popularizing  an  article  of  wearing  apparel 
or  fabric,  just  as  they  lead  in  foods  and  household  goods. 


T&ble  Delicacy 


and  different  !n»m  other  syn 

The  Great  Spread 
for  Daily  "Bread. 


PHOTOGRAPH   FROM   STILL   LIFE   USED    IN   A   MAGA.ZINE 
ADVERTISEMENT. 


THE  GENERAL  ADVERTISING  AGENCY       211 

Any  list  which  you  would  use,  to  be  representative,  should 
consist  of  the  best  women's  papers,  the  best  men's  maga- 
zines, the  best  popular  weeklies,  the  best  religious  publica- 
tions and  the  best  home  magazines.  This  list  can  be  ex- 
tended to  almost  any  length.  For  instance,  we  are  showing 
you  one  proposition  calling  for  something  inside  of  one  hun- 
dred thousand  dollars.  There  are  twenty-five  magazines  on 
this  list  having  an  aggregate  circulation  of  over  nine  millions. 


REPEATING    RIFLES    FOR    HUNTING. 


Shoot  a  'Winchester  once  and  you  will  shoot  a  Winchester  always: 
That's  because  Winchester  rifles  after  a  test  of  over  thirty  years  re- 
present today  in  accuracy,  reliability  and  quality,  the  highest  develop- 
ment in  gunmaking.  Wnatever  your  preferences  may  be,  some  one  of 
the  nine  different  Winchester  models  will  surely  suit  you;  for  they 
are  made  in  all  calibers,  styles  and  weights.  Use  Winchester  guns  for 
all  kinds  of  shooting  and  Winchester  cartridges  for  all  kinds  of  guns. 


WINCHESTER    REPEATING    ARMS   CO- 


NEW    HAVEN,    CONN. 


ATMOSPHERE   IN    A   MAGAZINE   HALF-PAGE   ADVERTISEMENT. 


The  actual  readers  of  each  copy  of  a  magazine  average 
five  people.  You  can  easily  prove  this  in  your  own  home 
by  noting  the  magazines  you  subscribe  for  and  how  many 
members  of  your  family  are  apt  to  look  at  them.  Thus  it 
will  be  seen  that  by  using  these  twenty-five  publications 
you  can  reach  half  the  population  of  the  United  States  twelve 
times — that  is,  an  entire  year. 

We  do  not  say  that  it  is  essential  for  the  success  of  the 
United  Textile  Company's  advertising  that  it  should  use 


212  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

this  entire  list  of  magazines  and  spend  this  amount  of  money. 
We  do  say  that  if  it  does  use  this  appropriation  and  this  list 
it  will  establish  its  trade-mark  and  create  the  demand  for, 
its  goods  just  that  much  sooner. 

It  requires  a  certain  amount  of  extra  effort  to  start  the 
advertising  of  a  new  article.  After  it  is  started  the  momen- 
tum carries  it.  For  the  first  few  months  your  advertising 
will  not  show  results,  but,  on  the  other  hand,  it  will  show 
results  for  some  months  after  all  advertising  has  stopped. 

A  synopsis  of  the  qualifications  of  each  magazine  men- 
tioned has  been  shown  on  a  separate  sheet.  These  twenty- 
five  magazines  are  the  representative  magazines  of  the 
country. 

Literature 

Possibly  the  greatest  advantage  we  have  to  offer  in  the 
wa}r  of  service  to  the  advertiser  is  in  the  character  and  variety 
of  the  literature  which  goes  with  our  magazine  advertising. 

You  will  find  a  great  many  agencies  which  can  place  mag- 
azine advertising  for  you.  You  will  find  quite  a  number 
which  can  select  just  as  good  a  list  as  we  can.  Every  agency 
gets  just  as  good  a  price  for  the  space  in  the  magazine  as  we 
do.  Some  claim  to  get  a  lower  price,  and  some  offer  this 
space  at  a  lower  price  to  you,  but  this  merely  means  that 
they  are  charging  less  for  the  service  they  render,  the  natural 
deduction  being  that  they  render  the  lesser  service  for  the 
lesser  price. 

We  do  not  know  any  agency  which  is  prepared  to  carry 
out  so  thorough  and  effective  a  system  of  collateral  adver- 
tising through  novel  and  unusual  literature  as  we  are. 

The  literature  and  the  way  it  is  used  form  the  most  effec- 
tive part  of  your  magazine  advertising.  Without  it  the  maga- 
zine advertising  is  incomplete,  and  yet  it  is  the  part  of  the 
work  that  is  seen  the  least. 

In  an  ocean-liner  most  of  the  ship  is  below  the  water-line. 
You  see  a  little  of  the  hull,  smoke-stack,  rigging,  and  ever}r- 
thing  above  the  rail.  Below  are  the  engines  which  do  the 


THE  GENERAL  ADVERTISING  AGENCY   213 

actual  work,  the  rudder  and  the  steering  apparatus.  So  in 
advertising.  The  advertisements  in  the  magazines  are  the 
part  above  the  water-line.  The  printed  matter  of  all  sorts 
and  the  plans  for  putting  it  in  the  most  effective  place  are 
what  make  the  magazine  advertising  effective. 

The  effect  of  advertising  the  products  of  the  United 
Textile  Company  will  be  in  evidence  upon  the  manufacturing 
clothier,  the  retail  clothiers,  the  custom  tailors,  and  upon  the 
woolen  commission  men,  jobber  and  wholesaler,  and  upon 
the  wholesale  and  retail  dry  goods  houses  and  department 
stores. 

Each  and  every  one  of  these  classes  of  businesses  should 
be  informed  of  the  plans  and  advertising  of  the  United  Tex- 
tile Company.  Their  cooperation  is  necessary.  It  is  true 
that  sufficient  advertising  will  compel  every  one  of  these 
trades  to  handle  your  goods,  but  it  is  also  true  that  while  you 
can  compel  them,  cooperation  will  bring  about  the  results 
more  quickly. 

The  main  idea  of  the  United  Textile  Company  in  com- 
bining the  various  mills  which  make  up  its  personnel  was  to 
strengthen  its  position  as  relates  to  the  various  trades.  The 
independent  mill  is  almost  at  the  mercy  of  the  commission 
man.  It  has  no  future.  The  commission  man  dominates 
its  manufacture,  fixes  prices,  and  is  the  only  customer  the 
manufacturer  has. 

Your  large  organization  makes  you  superior  to  some 
extent  to  this  relation,  but  between  you  and  the  public  is  an 
immense  machinery  which  you  can  not  control.  The  demand 
for  your  goods  should  come  from  the  consumer,  who  is  after 
all  the  court  of  last  resort,  through  his  dealer  or  tailor  to  the 
clothing  manufacturer,  and  from  him  through  the  jobber  and 
commission  man  to  you. 

Forty  million  American  men  and  women  insisting  upon 
United  Textile  Company's  fabrics  is  bound  to  have  its  effect 
upon  your  output. 

The  first  class  of  literature  you  will  need  is  booklets  in 
regard  to  your  fabrics,  booklets  about  the  United  Textile 
Company  in  general,  booklets  about  various  seasonable, 


214  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

fashionable  and  stylish  fabrics  both  for  men  and  women, 
which  you  will  distribute  in  two  ways. 

First,  in  answer  to  your  magazine  advertising.  Every  ad 
will  contain  a  suggestion  that  the  reader  send  for  a  booklet. 
The  object  will  be,  first,  to  get  attractive  literature  in  the 
hands  of  an  interested  party,  and  second,  to  gauge  the  in- 
terest of  the  public.  The  address  in  each  magazine  will  be 
varied  to  some  extent  so  that  you  can,  when  necessary, 
determine  which  publication  inspired  the  reply.  This  is  a 
matter  of  mere  tabulation  which  can  be  attended  to  by  an 
intelligent  clerk  or  stenographer.  You  will  advertise  men's 
goods  in  men's  magazines,  women's  goods  in  women's  maga- 
zines, and  both  in  the  home  magazines. 

Meanwhile  your  advertising  department  will  be  in  a  posi- 
tion to  recommend  any  inquirer  to  a  custom  tailor,  retail 
clothing  store  or  dry  goods  store  where  United  Textile  Com- 
pany's fabrics  can  be  had. 

Of  course  it  is  undoubtedly  true  that  you  are  already  well 
established  in  nearly  every  leading  store,  but  your  advertising 
will  bring  so  great  a  leverage  to  bear  upon  the  trade  that  you 
will  have  a  list  of  places  in  each  town  to  which  you  can  refer 
any  inquirer. 

This  is  all  a  matter  of  routine.  All  the  correspondence 
will  be  in  the  shape  of  form  letters  which  can  be  written  out 
by  a  regularly  organized  advertising  department. 

In  addition  to  this,  you  should  be  in  position  to  give  each 
house  in  the  chain  between  you  and  the  consumer  appro- 
priate literature.  Advertising  should  go  to  the  jobbers  and 
wholesalers  about  your  woolens,  to  the  manufacturer  of 
clothing  and  to  the  tailor.  Literature  should  also  go  to  the 
buyers  of  dress  goods  for  department  and  dry  goods  stores, 
as  well  as  to  wholesale  dry  goods  houses. 

This  literature  will  consist  of  printed  matter  sent  out  at 
regular  intervals,  presumably  every  two  weeks,  to  the  same 
people  for  an  entire  year.  The  tone  of  this  printed  matter 
will  be,  first,  that  American  fabrics  for  American  people  is 
the  keynote  of  the  United  Textile  Company's  manufacture; 
that  you  intend  to  make  your  trade-mark  stand  for  quality, 


THE  GENERAL  ADVERTISING  AGENCY       215 

and  that  you  wish  both  the  trade  and  the  public  to  know 
that  you  will  live  up  to  your  trade-mark,  guarantee  your 
fabrics,  and  make  good  any  defects. 

This  policy  will  be  passed  from  you  through  the  various 
handlers  to  the  public. 

Also  you  will  constantly  call  attention  to  the  fact  that  you 
are  telling  the  story  of  the  United  Textile  Company's  fabrics 
to  half  the  population  of  the  United  States  every  month, 
and  this  in  itself  will  be  the  strongest  leverage  you  can  have 
upon  sales  of  all  kinds.  No  matter  where  your  orders  come 
from,  no  matter  what  men  are  interested  in  buying  your 
goods,  they  must  all  of  them  be  readers  of  some  of  the  maga- 
zines upon  your  list.  They  are  being  influenced  just  as  well 
as  the  actual  consumer. 

Street  Cars 

Street  car  advertising  can  be  used  judiciously  to  a  small 
amount,  to  popularize  your  trade-mark. 

The  magazine  advertising  will  be  specific.  It  will  be  de- 
voted to  seasonable  fabrics.  It  will  afford  room  for  descrip- 
tion and  illustration.  The  street  car  cards,  however,  will  be 
used  to  popularize  your  trade-mark  and  teach  the  public 
what  it  stands  for.  It  will  be  general,  urging  every  pur- 
chaser of  woolens  in  any  form  to  insist  upon  the  trade-mark 
of  the  United  Textile  Company. 

We  do  not  know  at  this  writing  how  far  you  go  in  the 
manufacture  of  woolens.  We  do  not  know  if  you  make 
blankets,  for  instance,  and  other  goods  that  are  not  wearing 
apparel.  If  so,  your  stand  will  be  that  everything  woolen 
or  worsted  should  bear  the  United  Textile  Company's  trade- 
mark. Street  car  advertising  costs  on  an  average  fifty  cents 
per  card  per  month. 

Posters 

The  same  idea  will  be  followed  in  a  moderate  way  in 
poster  advertising. 

Probably  the  best  and  most  direct  poster  advertising  is 


216  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

that  of  the  elevated  stations  in  New  York  City.  We  would 
recommend  the  use  of  both  uptown  and  downtown  stations, 
calling  for  192  one-sheet  posters,  changing  the  posters  each 
month,  the  expense  being  about  six  hundred  dollars  a  month. 
New  York  is  the  great  center  of  the  United  States.  Pretty 
nearly  every  one  comes  here  some  time  during  the  year.  It 
is  a  great  buying  center,  and  thousands  of  buyers  in  all  lines 
in  which  woolens  are  used  are  here  twice  a  year.  These 
people  are  influenced  by  the  advertising  in  street  cars  and 
upon  elevated  stations  just  as  much  as  the  public.  It  will 
have  effect  on  their  buying,  as  well  as  upon  the  use  of  your 
goods  by  the  public  that  wears  them.  That  is  the  wonderful 
thing  about  advertising.  It  is  cumulative.  Impression  is 
added  to  impression  until  the  idea  is  well  established  in  the 
minds  of  the  public. 

Scope  of  the  Advertising 

As  we  have  outlined  in  this  letter  your  possibilities  are 
unlimited.  Your  advertising  should  be  planned  on  a  very 
broad  ground.  It  is  to  appeal  to  a  deeply-intrenched  instinct 
of  the  American  people — that  is,  patriotism.  It  is  to  appeal 
to  a  deeply-intrenched  instinct  of  the  human  race — that  is, 
pecuniary  advantage.  American-made  woolens  for  American 
men  and  women,  partly  because  they  are  American,  and 
especially  because  they  are  cheaper,  is  a  strong  argument. 
Your  woolens  as  against  all  other  domestics  because  they  are 
trade-marked  and  are  known  and  can  be  identified,  and 
because  the  great  corporation  of  the  United  Textile  Com- 
pany is  behind  them  to  make  good,  is  an  argument  which 
can  not  be  beaten. 

If  it  should  ever  come  about  that  the  tariff  on  imported 
woolens  is  removed  or  greatly  reduced,  several  years  of  ad- 
vertising will  have  made  the  United  Textile  Company  so 
strong  in  this  country  that  it  will  be  impossible  for  the  foreign 
manufacturer  to  compete. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  first  large  manufacturer  who  takes 
up  the  advertising  of  woolens  is  going  to  have  a  tremendous 


THE  GENERAL  ADVERTISING  AGENCY       217 

advantage.  If  you  have  a  year  or  two  headstart  of  all  com- 
petitors in  establishing  your  trade-mark  for  woolen  and 
worsted  goods,  it  will  take  your  competitors  just  that  long 
to  get  to  the  same  position,  and  meanwhile  you  will  have 
gone  on.  Your  advertising  should  not  only  be  done  on  a 
large  scale  and  done  rightly,  but  it  should  be  done  now.  The 


WHERE  ARE  TH 
CLOTHES  THAT 
HAVE  RUBBED 

to  pieces  this  washboard ;  gone 
before  their  time — your  health 
and  temper,  too?  PEARLINE 
does  away  with  the  rubbing; 
.prolongs  the  Life  of  Fabrics — 


REDUCES 


,     _ 

he  lours  of  Work 


CHARACTER  AS  SHOWN  BY  PHOTOGRAPHY. 

time  is  absolutely  ripe  for  such  an  exploitation.  Never  was 
the  American  public  so  keenly  expectant  of  new  things; 
never  has  it  been  reading  advertising  so  religiously,  and 
acting  upon  that  advertising  so  promptly;  never  was  there 
a  nation  so  open-minded,  so  ready  to  listen  to  argument,  so 
reached  through  its  different  interests  as  this  country  of  ours. 
The  United  Textile  Company  stands  in  the  position  to- 
day of  being  the  one  great  corporation  which  can  pull  off  the 
most  tremendous  advertising  coup  of  advertising  history, 
and  one  that  will  stand  as  a  monument  for  years  to  come 
of  the  possibilities  of  printers'  ink  rightly  expended  in  swelling 
the  profits  of  a  great  corporation. 


218 


MODERN  ADVERTISING 


customcn  are  not  inick  on  the  label 
that  it  stuck  on  their  bread.  They 
alwayi  wonder  who  licked  it.  Sparks' 
Waxed  Bread  Wrappen  are  clean  and 
unitary,  and  produce  an  imprcnion 
about  the  baker  that  every  baker 
ought  to  want.  A«k  for  price»,  printed 


Union  Waxed  and   Parchment 

Paper  Company 
277  Broadway  New  York 


Our  Service 

We  stand  in  the  position  of  soliciting  your  advertising 
business  as  an  advertising  agency  organized  upon  new  lines. 
Advertising  agencies  may  be  divided  into  two  classes: 
The  old-school  agency  consists  of  a  large  corps  of  solicitors. 
The  soliciting  of  business  is  the  chief 
a"n  °f  the  agencv'    We  are  not  pre- 
pared  to  say  that  they  render  no  ser- 
vice, but  that  service,  such  as  it  is, 
is  obscured  by  the  fact  that  too  many 
people    handle  the  same   advertising. 
It  is  a  long  reach  between  the  solici- 
tor and  the  man  who  actually  executes 
the  plans. 

Then  some  of  these  agencies  rest 
entirely  upon  cut  rates.  They  take' 
business  at  almost  any  percentage  of 
the  advertising  appropriation  because 
they  have  no  service  to  render  except 
the  service  of  a  placing  machine. 
They  are  merely  clearing-houses  which 
take  your  advertising  and  send  it 
out  to  the  publications,  render  bills 
and  collect. 

We  accept  magazine  business  at 
the  established  commission  of  ten  per 
cent,  because  we  have  found,  in  com- 
mon with  other  modern  agencies,  that 
proper  advertising  service  can  not  be 
rendered  for  less.  This  is  the  commis- 
sion recognized  by  the  leading  magazines,  and  some  of  them 
insist  on  signed  agreements  with  agents  to  maintain  this 
commission.  Any  agent  who  offers  to  cut  the  rate  of  these 
publications  is  violating  a  signed  contract,  and  it  may  be 
inferred  that  an  agent  who  will  violate  a  contract  with  a 
magazine  will  break  confidence  with  the  advertiser. 

Service  is  something  that  can  not  be  measured  entirely  by 


CATCHY   STYLE   FOR 
TRADE  -  PAPER 
ADVERTISING. 


THE  GENERAL  ADVERTISING  AGENCY       219 

dollars  and  cents.  If  you  pay  so  much  money  for  a  com- 
bination of  space  and  service,  and  if  the  price  of  space  is  a 
fixed  one,  the  agent  who  takes  your  business  at  a  cut  price 
must  cut  out  some  of  the  service. 

We  have  no  solicitors.  Our  house  is  a  partnership  of  two 
men,  and  the  advertising  accounts  which  we  have,  have  the 
entire  thought,  attention  and  actual  work  of  these  two  men. 
We  are  not  accepting  any  more  business  than  we  can  handle 
personally.  Our  business  is  a  professional  one,  just  as  is 
that  of  an  architect,  a  lawyer  or  a  doctor.  You  get  the 
benefit  of  our  own  immediate  advice,  without  any  middle- 
men, solicitors  or  others  to  obscure  the  relations. 

Our  success  with  the  customers  we  have  has  been  marked. 

We  can  refer  to  the  advertising  managers  of  all  prominent 
publications  as  to  our  standing  and  ability  in  the  adver- 
tising world. 

We  will  gladly  furnish  a  list  of  our  present  clients,  and 
refer  you  to  the  officers  of  any  company  for  whom  we  are  work- 
ing as  to  what  we  have  accomplished. 

We  are  prepared  to  bring  to  the  advertising  of  the  United 
Textile  Company,  not  only  a  technical  training  in  connection 
with  some  of  the  best  advertising  that  has  been  done  in  the 
past  ten  years,  but  also  unlimited  enthusiasm  as  to  its  future 
possibilities. 

Yours  very  truly, 

BLACK  &  WHITE. 


CHAPTER    IX 

RETAIL    ADVERTISING 

RETAIL  advertising  is  the  advertising  done  by 
retail  dealers  through  local  newspapers  and  other 
mediums  in  order  to  reach  people  who  will  come  to 
the  store  and  buy  goods.  Retail  advertising  differs 
from  general  advertising  chiefly  in  respect  to  the  fact 
that  it  is  local  rather  than  general.  The  same  quali- 
ties that  make  general  advertising  good  apply  to  retail 
advertising.  But,  as  a  rule,  retail  advertising  is  not 
so  well  done. 

The  manufacturer  who  is  selling  a  product  over 
the  entire  country  can  afford  to  pay  more  than  the 
retailer  does  for  both  his  "  copy  "  and  for  his  designs. 
This  is  true,  not  in  general,  but  in  particular.  A 
number  of  retailers,  especially  those  in  the  large  cities, 
do  just  as  good  advertising  and  spend  just  as  much 
money  upon  their  copy  and  designs  as  the  general  ad- 
vertiser, and  in  some  instances  more.  Department 
stores  pay  very  large  salaries  to  advertisement  writers, 
and  give  a  great  deal  of  thought  and  study  to  their 
cuts,  designs,  illustrations,  type  display  and  the  like. 

Retail  advertising  is  the  real  support  of  the  news- 
papers, and  a  great  proportion  of  it  comes  from  the 
department  stores.  In  a  great  many  cities  these  stores 
use  as  much  as  a  page  a  day  in  a  given  newspaper, 
and  in  some  cases  two  and  even  four  pages  have  been 
used  in  a  given  day. 

In  metropolitan  cities,  such  as  ~New  York,  Chi- 
220 


RETAIL  ADVERTISING  221 

cago  and  Philadelphia,  as  high  as  $12,500  a  year  is 
paid  to  the  man  who  has  charge  of  the  advertising. 
This  man  may  have  as  many  as  a  dozen  assistants, 
some  of  whom  are  advertising  writers,  others  of  whom 
are  printers,  designers,  artists,  stenographers  and 
clerks,  making  a  complete  advertising  department 
in  itself. 

The  retail  advertiser  as  such  can  not  use  the  maga- 
zines or  any  publication  having  a  general  circulation. 
His  chief  medium  is  the  newspapers  which  circulate 
not  only  in  the  city  where  the  business  is  located,  but 
in  nearby  suburban  towns  tributary  to  the  main  city 
from  which  the  store  draws  shoppers. 

A  modern  development  of  business  and  of  adver- 
tising is  a  chain  of  stores  operated  by  one  manufac- 
turer, who  thus  becomes  a  retailer  on  a  large  scale. 
Such  a  chain  of  stores  can  be  advertised  in  mediums 
of  national  circulation,  giving  the  addresses  of  the 
stores  in  the  different  cities,  unless  the  list  is  too  long, 
in  which  case  the  reader  of  the  advertising  is  advised 
to  look  up  the  store  in  his  own  town. 

One  of  the  largest  enterprises  of  this  kind  is  an 
association  of  cigar  stores  which  maintains  not  only 
one  but  many  retail  stores  in  a  single  town,  and  has 
spread  all  over  the  United  States,  so  that  small  towns 
have  at  least  one  store  of  this  syndicate.  This  adver- 
tiser uses  both  magazines  and  newspapers.  Several 
shoe  manufacturers  and  other  businesses  follow  the 
same  plan. 

The  advertising  done  by  these  syndicates  of  stores 
is  not  retail  advertising  in  a  strict  sense,  although 
the  stores  are  retail  stores.  When  a  manufacturer 
sells  goods  by  general  advertising,  whether  he  sells 


222  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

it  through  the  regular  retail  stores  or  through  his 
own  retail  store,  the  advertising  he  does  is  more  near- 
ly similar  to  general  advertising  than  it  is  to  retail 
advertising. 

The  retail  advertiser  then  is  the  man  who  adver- 
tises in  local  newspapers  to  get  local  customers  to  come 
to  his  store  to  buy  goods.  In  the  smaller  towns  there 
is  a  close  personal  relation  between  the  dealer  him- 
self and  his  customers.  In  a  large  city  a  great  store 
grows  up  with  an  army  of  clerks,  and  the  advertiser 
himself  as  a  personality  is  unknown  to  the  shoppers. 

At  the  head  of  retail  advertising  stands,  as  has 
been  said,  department-store  advertising,1  and  the 

1  An  official  statement,  made  by  a  man  familiar  with  depart- 
ment-store advertising,  places  the  annual  expenditure  for  this 
sort  of  publicity  in  New  York  and  Brooklyn  at  $4,000,000.  He 
divides  it  as  follows : 

John  Wanamaker $500,000 

Siegel-Cooper  Co 400,000 

Simpson-Crawford  Co 400,000 

R.  H.  Macy  &  Co 350,000 

Adams  Dry  Goods  Co 300,000 

Bloomingdale's 300,000 

Hearn 250,000 

Ehrich  Bros 200,000 

Frederick  Loeser  &  Co.,  Brooklyn 200,000 

Abraham  &  Strauss,  Brooklyn 200,000 

Rothenberg  &  Co 175,000 

H.  O'Neil  &  Co 150,000 

Saks  &  Co 100,000 

B.  Altman  &  Co 100,000 

A.  D.  Matthews  &  Sons,  Brooklyn 100,000 

Chapman  &  Co.,  Brooklyn 100,000 

Stern  Bros 75,000 

H.  Batterman,  Brooklyn 75,000 

Lord  &  Taylor 50,000 

Koch  &  Co 50,000 

Arnold,  Constable  &  Co 35,000 

Small  department  stores 50,000 

$4,160,000 


The  Good  Ship  "Christmas"  Now  Docked  at  Wanamaker's 


SUH  UB  FLEET 
LltS  IT  OTS  DOCK 


Beautiful  Christmas  Silks 

SK  K  75f  a  Yard  Uu  Tta,  R,t*lar  PrK<, 


Those  "Royal"  Waists 


15.75  to  99  Silk  Umbrella* 


THE  PHILADELPHIA  STYLE  OF  DEPARTMENT-STORE  ADVERTI- 
SING. ONE  DOMINANT  IDEA  HOLDS  THE  PAGE  ADVER- 
TISEMENT TOGETHER. 


1G 


224  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

pioneer  in  department-store  advertising  is  without 
question  John  Wanamaker.  Although  there  are  many 
department  stores  to-day  whose  advertising  is  as  in- 
telligent and  as  productive  as  that  of  the  two  Wana- 
maker stores,  it  is  true  that  the  modern  idea  of 
department-store  advertising  grew  up  under  the  man- 
agement of  John  Wanamaker  in  Philadelphia.  It  is 
generally  said  that  Manly  M.  Gillam,  an  advertising 
writer  of  reputation,  is  largely  responsible  for  what 
is  known  as  the  Wanamaker  style  of  advertising.  In 
an  interview  given  to  Printer's  Ink,1  Mr.  Gillam 
has  described  his  connection  with  the  Wanamaker 
advertising : 

"I  was  then  managing  editor  of  the  Philadelphia  Record," 
he  said  lately  at  the  office  of  the  New  York  Herald,  "and 
knew  nothing  of  advertising.  My  training  had  all  been  along 
news  and  editorial  lines.  There  wasn't  a  great  deal  of  adver- 
tising printed  in  the  Philadelphia  papers  at  that  time,  but 
soon  after  going  to  the  Quaker  City  my  attention  was  attract- 
ed by  the  daily  announcements  of  John  Wanamaker.  They 
were  seldom  a  column  in  size,  and  more  often  a  half  column. 
But  the  items  of  store  news  were  set  in  pica  old  style,  which, 
among  the  black  ads  of  that  day,  made  them  conspicuous 
through  their  inconspicuousness.  It  seemed  to  me  a  very 
good  type  for  setting  advertisements,  but  I  thought  I  could 
improve  the  manner  in  which  they  told  their  story. 

"  Mr.  Singerly,  publisher  of  the  Record,  had  a  magnificent 
herd  of  Holstein  cattle  at  his  country  place  outside  of  Phila- 
delphia. They  were  kept  with  greater  care  than  some  people 
keep  their  children — housed  in  stone  barns,  fed  on  ensilage, 
groomed  like  horses.  The  milk  was  scientifically  cooled, 
the  cream  separated  by  centrifugal  machinery  and  butter 
churned  from  it  with  every  regard  for  the  best  product.  In 

1  September  7th,  1904. 


RETAIL  ADVERTISING  225 

Philadelphia  at  that  day  the  famous  Darlington  butter  sold 
at  a  dollar  a  pound  and  never  lacked  buyers.  But  the  butter 
from  Mr.  Singerly's  Holsteins,  every  whit  as  good,  was  put 
on  sale  two  days  a  week  at  the  old  Central  Market  at  regular 
market  prices.  It  didn't  sell.  There  were  some  buyers,  but 
no  regular  demand. 

"'Hang  it  all,  Cillam,'  he  said  to  me  one  day.  'Why 
doesn't  it  sell?  See  if  you  can't  write  some  sort  of  advertise- 
ment to  make  that  butter  go/ 

"  Well,  when  I  got  round  to  the  matter,  the  first  thing  that 
struck  me  was  the  old  style  pica  of  the  Wanamaker  ads— 
Wanamaker  type,  we  called  it.  Then  I  began  to  ask  myself 
what  argument  could  be  employed  to  interest  people  in  this 
Holstein  butter.  This  brought  me  eventually  to  what  I 
believe  is  the  principle  of  all  advertising.  I  asked  myself 
why  I,  or  my  wife,  or  my  family,  should  use  that  butter. 
Because  it  was  good — better  than  any  other  to  be  had  at 
the  price.  The  point  was,  therefore,  to  let  people  know  how 
good  it  was. 

"  I  began  an  investigation  of  Holstein  cattle,  and  found 
that  for  a  thousand  years  this  breed  had  been  the  pride 
of  Europe.  When  America  was  a  wilderness  the  Holstein 
herds  had  been  cared  for  like  children,  and  many  famous 
butter-making  strains,  like  the  English  Holderness,  were  de- 
rived from  them.  It  was  intensely  interesting  to  me,  and  I 
felt  sure  it  would  be  to  the  public.  So  three  ads  were  planned 
— the  first  to  give  the  history  of  the  Holsteins,  the  second  to 
tell  about  them  in  America,  and  the  third  to  deal  with  Mr. 
Singerly's  herd  and  the  methods  of  making  butter  at  his  farm. 
Three  cuts  of  Holstein  cows  were  made.  The  ads  took  a 
half  column  of  space  in  the  Wanamaker  type,  with  the  cut 
in  the  center.  The  facts  were  so  interesting  that  any  one 
who  began  to  read  would  continue  to  the  end.  The  only 
advertising  argument  was  comprised  in  a  nonpareil  line  at  the 
bottom — 'Butter  from  a  herd  of  Holstein  cows  will  be  on 
sale  to-day  at  the  Central  Market  at  regular  prices.'  One 
ad  did  the  business.  At  noon  of  the  morning  the  first  ad  was 
printed  there  wasn't  an  ounce  of  the  butter  left,  and  the  other 


226  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

two  ads  established  a  demand  that  far  exceeded  the  capacity 
of  the  dairy. 

"Some  months  after  Mr.  Singerly  asked  me  what  I  knew 
about  music. 

"'  Nothing  at  all/  I  said. 

"'Well,  there's  a  man  named  Willard  Spenser  here  in 
town  who's  writing  an  opera  for  the  Temple  Theater,  and  I 
want  you  to  advertise  it.' 

"  The  Temple  Theater  belonged  to  the  publisher  of  the 
Record,  but  had  never  paid.  This  new  opera  was  '  The  Little 
Tycoon.'  The  Japanese  were  an  unknown  people  then,  and 
I  found  out  what  I  could  about  them  from  books.  A  hundred 
and  fifty  little  ads  were  written  describing  their  life  and 
manners,  such  as  their  way  of  sleeping  on  a  wooden  pillow 
with  a  lantern  to  keep  away  evil  spirits,  their  custom  of 
shaking  hands  with  themselves,  getting  on  to  a  horse  from 
the  right  side  and  so  forth.  These  were  printed  with  little 
cuts  of  Japs  planting  rice,  drinking  tea,  and  so  on,  and  at 
the  bottom  of  each  was  a  line,  '  The  Little  Tycoon  will  give  a 
reception  at  the  Temple  Theater  to-night.'  Almost  imme- 
diately the  theater  began  doing  a  business  that  far  exceeded 
its  capacity,  and  the  opera  had  a  run  in  Philadelphia  that 
was  never  equalled  on  the  road.  After  that  I  wrote  some 
advertising  for  Kellar,  the  magician,  then  a  youngster  in  his 
profession,  using  the  facts  of  Kellar 's  own  life  and  travels 
as  the  main  theme  of  interest. 

"But  this  is  like  getting  into  an  old  garret.  Perhaps  I 
am  telling  you  of  things  that  are  of  no  interest  to  present- 
day  advertisers.  To  make  a  long  story  short,  John  Wana- 
maker  came  to  the  Record,  one  day  and  wanted  to  engage  the 
man  who  had  written  the  Holstein  ads.  I  was  doing  ^s 
well  as  I  had  ever  hoped  to  do  on  the  Record,  and  my  rela- 
tions with  Mr.  Singerly  were  those  of  a  son.  In  my  heart, 
however,  I  knew  that  I  was  only  a  theorist  in  business  affairs. 
I  wrote  advertising  confidently,  but  it  was  entirely  on  theory. 
I  was  a  book  merchant,  if  you  please.  The  best  capital  that 
any  man  can  have  is  what  he  has  in  his  head.  To  come  in 
touch  with  the  greatest  retail  business  in  America  would  add 


RETAIL  ADVERTISING  227 

infinitely  to  my  knowledge.  If  it  led  to  nothing  else  I  should 
be  a  better  newspaper  man  for  the  experience.  I  accepted 
the  offer. 

"When  I  went  into  the  new  position  it  was  with  a  real 
awe  of  the  department  heads  that  Mr.  Wanamaker  had  gath- 
ered about  him.  To  me,  it  seemed,  every  individual  one 
of  them  must  be  a  veritable  master  in  merchandising,  and 
the  store  an  aggregation  of  little  Napoleons  of  commerce.  I 
found,  however,  that  while  each  head  knew  all  about  goods, 
widths,  prices,  grades,  and  everything  that  pertained  to 
buying  in  his  department,  there  were  few  who  had  any  notion 
of  public  demand  or  general  business  methods.  They  knew 
the  people  from  whom  they  bought,  but  not  those  to  whom 
they  sold.  The  genius  of  John  Wanamaker,  for  manage- 
ment, made  the  selling  organization.  I  feel  safe  in  saying 
that  he  is  even  a  poor  buyer,  but  in  determining  public  de- 
mand and  getting  close  to  the  people  he  is  a  wizard. 

"The  half  column  to  a  column  of  space  used  daily  was  a 
big  advertisement  in  1886.  With  my  eighteen  years  of  ex- 
perience in  gathering  and  writing  the  news  of  the  world, 
it  was  natural  that  I  should  treat  the  advertising  as  a  news 
proposition.  In  the  store  I  sought  centers  of  interest.  The 
style  of  my  predecessors  had  been  sprightly  and  entertain- 
ing, but  ran  chiefly  to  talk,  with  few  prices  and  little  selling 
argument.  It  was  excellent,  yet  seemed  the  wrong  thing. 
After  stirring  up  interest,  why  not  put  some  meat  on  the 
bones  of  the  skeleton  that  had  been  created?  Plenty  of 
prices  were  made  a  feature  of  the  ads,  and  the  story  was 
varied  from  day  to  day  by  putting  emphasis  on  different 
departments.  The  news  of  the  store — that  was  the  idea. 
Some  days  we  had  strikes  in  hosiery,  and  on  others  red- 
handed  war  in  dress-goods.  Advertising  in  a  big  store  might 
be  compared  to  gathering  fruit  from  a  great  orchard.  Every- 
thing depends  on  selection  of  interesting  subjects.  Some 
men  go  out  and  gather  the  ripe,  tempting  things  that  appeal 
to  the  public,  while  others  set  before  readers  in  their  ads 
only  the  windfalls,  green  plums  and  rotten  apples. 

"My  theory  of  the  reader's  treatment  of  advertising  was 


228  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

a  glance.  So  presently  the  ads  were  cut  up  into  paragraphs 
with  little  subheads  to  catch  the  eye  and  make  easy  reading. 
Every  ad  had  little  hooks  to  catch  attention,  and  followed 
the  line  of  least  resistance.  I  soon  saw  the  convenience  of 
having  the  ads  set  in  the  store,  and  put  in  a  composing-room. 
There  was  economy  in  it,  too,  for  by  cutting  out  a  word  here 
and  there  we  saved  several  lines  of  space  daily,  and  as  the 
cost  of  a  line  in  all  the  papers  was  something  like  four  dollars, 
the  service  really  paid  for  itself.  Mr.  Ogden  was  in  the  Phila- 
delphia store  then,  and  persistently  advocated  the  use  of 
illustrations.  We  recognized  their  value,  but  didn't  know 
how  to  produce  enough  interesting  pictures  to  supply  the 
daily  demand.  Mr.  Wanamaker  said  it  was  impossible  to 
make  suggestive  cuts  in  sufficient  number,  but  Mr.  Ogden 
persisted — he  was  an  enthusiast.  Finally,  we  had  a  con- 
ference on  the  matter  and  each  took  home  a  set  of  proofs 
to  think  up  subjects  for  illustration.  I  produced  four  with 
the  greatest  difficulty,  and  was  heartily  ashamed  of  them. 
The  others  had  about  as  many.  All  seemed  puerile,  but 
Mr.  Wanamaker  gave  the  word  to  go  ahead  as  soon  as  we 
had  fifty  pictures  in  reserve.  Several  weeks  must  have 
passed  before  we  secured  that  number,  for  ideas  came  slowly. 
I  could  suggest  three  hundred  pictures  to-day  from  one  of 
those  ads,  but  you  must  remember  that  we  were  on  entirely 
new  ground  then. 

"The  average  space  was  a  column  a  day,  but  sometimes 
we  took  a  page,  and  once  two  pages.  But  the  next  day's  ad 
would  be  a  half  column.  The  advertising  simply  reported 
the  normal  gossip  of  the  store.  The  size  of  the  ad  indicated 
its  importance.  A  three-column  announcement  in  the  Phila- 
delphia morning  papers  was  instantly  recognized  by  the 
people  of  that  city  as  an  event  at  Wanamaker's.  It  was  a 
good  method,  that.  I  think  to-day  that  the  normal  news 
of  a  large  store  can  be  amply  told  in  a  column  of  newspaper 
space.  The  news  of  the  store  is  like  the  news  of  the  world. 
You  can't  take  Port  Arthur  every  morning,  or  bury  a  Queen, 
or  assassinate  a  President.  If  you  do,  the  thing  palls.  Worse 
yet,  the  advertising  man  must  work  in  the  treadmill  of  a  page 


RETAIL  ADVERTISING  229 

a  day,  with  the  result  that  the  advertising  becomes  lifeless 
and  perfunctory. 

"From  all  this  gossip  of  all  times  I  presume  you  want  me 
to  draw  an  advertising  moral.  Well,  I  firmly  believe  that  the 
methods  followed  then  are  better  than  those  of  the  present, 
and  that  we  must  eventually  come  back  to  them  by  reaction. 
Present-day  ads  are  too  big.  The  desire  to  attract  by  bigness 
of  space  and  bigness  of  statement  has  become  a  disease. 
The  bread  is  spread  so  thin  sometimes  that  you  can't  taste 
the  butter.  The  everlasting  grind  of  filling  a  page  a  day 
inevitably  leads  to  exaggeration.  In  an  old  Oriental  legend 
each  Caliph  on  ascending  the  throne  shot  an  arrow,  and  each 
was  supposed  to  shoot  further  than  his  predecessor.  That's 
what  advertising  men  try  to  do  now.  Exaggeration  soon 
leads  to  demoralization.  I  grant  that  there  is  a  certain 
portion  of  the  public  that  can  be  attracted  by  big  ads  and 
sensational  statements.  In  Boston  I  helped  break  up  the 
get-rich-quick  swindle  of  a  swindler  who  promised  people 
twenty-five  per  cent,  on  their  money,  and  it  seemed  that 
when  his  game  had  been  fully  exposed  the  public  would  never 
bite  again.  But  lately  we  have  had  520-per  cent.  Miller, 
and  I  now  believe  that  a  1,000-per  cent,  swindle  would  catch 
victims.  Years  ago  in  Philadelphia  there  was  a  clothing 
merchant  who  attracted  people  by  the  most  sensational, 
lying  statements.  He  seemed  to  do  well  despite  his  dis- 
honesty. One  day  Mr.  Wanamaker  frankly  asked  him  why 
he  pursued  a  method  of  getting  business  that  was  so  far 
from  legitimate. 

" '  Mr.  Wanamaker,'  he  replied  with  equal  frankness, '  there 
are  one  million  people  in  Philadelphia.  Ten  per  cent,  of 
them  are  fools — one  hundred  thousand.  If  I  can  get  ten 
per  cent,  of  those — ten  thousand — I  can  do  a  profitable  busi- 
ness. And  you  must  always  remember,  that  our  population 
is  increasing.' 

"He  thrived  for  a  number  of  years,  but  on  that  corner 
to-day  there  is  no  clothing  store.  Now,  right  among  the 
sensational,  spread-eagle  advertisements  of  to-day  there  are 
smaller  announcements  of  firms  people  trust  so  implicitly 


230  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

that  they  don't  need  much  advertising.  Their  reputations 
for  fair  dealing  and  conservative  statements  are  so  firmly 
established  that  their  column  a  day  carries  more  weight  than 
somebody  else's  page.  When  they  say  'Three  dollars  re- 
duced from  five/  the  public  knows  that  five  dollars  was  the 
actual  selling  price  of  yesterday.  Others  resort  to  little 
subterfuges — and  I  confess  that  I  have  used  them  myself — 
like  'former  value  five  dollars/  meaning,  in  reality,  that  they 
were  perhaps  worth  that  in  the  time  of  Louis  XV.  Right 
here  is  the  diseased  member  of  the  advertising  body.  I 
indicate  the  disease,  but  leave  you  to  infer  the  remedy.  By 
the  law  of  reaction  we'll  eventually  revert  to  quieter  methods. 
"  From  time  to  time  there  has  been  hot  discussion  as  to 
who  organized  the  old  style  pica  method  of  advertising.  Mr. 
Wanamaker  says  that  he  selected  this  type  himself,  and 
Mr.  Ogden  supports  him.  Some  years  ago  the  Dry  Goods 
Economist  asked  me  to  write  an  article  that  would  settle  the 
point.  I  thought  it  would  be  easy  to  do  so  by  looking  up 
the  files  of  Philadelphia  papers.  But  far  earlier  than  1861, 
when  Mr.  Wanamaker  began  in  Oak  Hall,  I  found  old  style 
pica  ads  in  Philadelphia  dailies,  and  even  ads  that  had  the 
Wanamaker  style  of  taking  the  people  into  his  confidence 
and  talking  to  each  reader  individually.  None  of  the  adver- 
tisers had  ever  carried  the  idea  out  as  persistently  or  fully, 
but  the  germ  was  there,  and  I  concluded  that  instead  of 
settling  the  matter  with  an  article  I  could  only  add  to  the  fuel 
of  the  dispute.  The  Wanamaker  style  was  a  growth,  depend- 
ing on  no  one  man.  Each  successive  writer  has  added  some- 
thing to  it,  and  the  experience  of  years  has  added  most  of  all." 

Whether  due  to  this  fact,  or  to  some  other,  Phila- 
delphia still  remains  the  home  of  the  best  department- 
store  advertising.  Each  large  city  appears  to  have 
a  certain  style  of  its  own,  and  the  man  familiar  with 
such  things  can  tell  instantly  on  seeing  the  advertise- 
ment set  up  as  it  appears  in  the  newspaper  whether 
the  store  is  in  Chicago,  Philadelphia,  New  York  or 


nrtf:»no  »EroXP-nm.ti,t\ 


Fielet &IJC  d  mp  a  \\y 


There  Are  Only  41  Buying  Days  from  Now  Until  Christ 

The  experience'of  everybody  supports  the  wisdom  of  early  shopping  for  Christm 
are  now  more  complete  than  ever  before  at  this  date— and  your  friends  to  be  remembei 
and  the  more  leisure  possible  now  make  early  holiday  buying  a  pleasure    Many  people  are  already  busy  wtlh  t 
shopping  lists.     Ttot  store  ts  much  more  conspicuously  than  ever  before  the  recognized  headquarters  for  Christmas  goods 


;SSSSS!- 


Pajamas  and  Nitfit  Shirt,. 


1.000  Miniature  Hall  Clock. 


THE    CHICAGO     STYLE    OF    PAGE    DEPARTMENT-STORE   ADVER- 
TISEMENTS  SHOWS   WELL-BALANCED    ARRANGEMENTS. 


232  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

Boston.  Chicago  is  the  second  best  as  far  as  the  char- 
acter of  department-store  advertising  is  concerned; 
New  York  is  third,  and  Boston  fourth.  This  is  not 
saying  that  department-store  advertising  is  more 
profitable  in  the  cities  in  the  order  named;  it  is 
simply  that  from  modern  advertising  standards  it 
is  better  done.  That  is,  it  is  better  written,  better 
illustrated,  better  set  up  and  better  printed. 

Preparing  the  advertising  of  a  large  department 
store  is  almost  as  complex  as  the  work  of  issuing  a 
daily  newspaper.  Department  stores  advertise  every 
day  or  almost  every  day,  concentrating  their  large 
advertising  on  the  day  preceding  the  principal  shop- 
ping day  of  the  week  in  that  town.  In  small  towns 
that  day  is  usually  Saturday,  because  Saturday  is  the 
pay-day  in  most  small  towns,  and  because  those  towns 
have  no  Sunday  newspapers.  Therefore,  the  leading 
department-store  advertising  appears  in  the  papers 
Friday  night  and  Saturday  morning. 

In  a  large  city,  such  as  New  York,  Monday  is 
the  leading  shopping  day,  and  the  heaviest  advertising 
is  done  in  the  Sunday  papers.  Some  stores,  either 
for  reasons  of  principle,  or  for  reasons  of  policy,  do 
not  advertise  on  Sunday,  contenting  themselves  with 
Saturday  night  and  Monday  morning.  Some  retail 
stores  go  so  far  as  not  to  make  window  displays  on 
Sunday,  drawing  all  their  curtains  between  Saturday 
night  and  Monday  morning.  The  Wanamaker  adver- 
tisements, for  instance,  do  not  appear  in  the  Sunday 
papers.  But  the  fact  that  the  great  bulk  of  depart- 
ment-store advertising  appears  on  Sunday  has  made 
Monday  the  great  shopping  day. 

Friday  was  for  years  the  dullest  day  in  the  shop- 


TUCSOAY.    DECEMBER    ..   .904. 


T  O  Y_S  Interesting    news    for    holiday    shoppers  B-0-O-K-S 


i~?s 


NEW   YORK   DEPARTMENT-STORE    ADVERTISING   MAY 
REPRESENTED   BY  THIS  PAGE. 


BE 


234  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

ping  week.  The  stores  fell  gradually  into  the  habit 
of  making  attractive  offers  for  Friday  only,  to  attract 
a  crowd  of  shoppers  on  that  day.  This  has  been  so 
successful  that  the  shopping  woman  has  been  educated 
to  shop  on  Friday,  until  Friday  is  the  next  heaviest 
day  in  the  week.  On  these  two  days  the  crowd  is  so 
great  that  department  stores  are  now  seriously  con- 
sidering the  possibility  of  switching  some  of  the  busi- 
ness over  to  other  days  by  lessening  their  bargain 
advertising  for  the  two  days  in  question,  and  increas- 
ing it  for  the  other  days.  It  is  a  fact  that  a  great 
number  of  women  living  in  or  near  New  York  City 
have  changed  their  regular  wash-day  from  Monday 
to  Tuesday  in  order  to  take  advantage  of  the  bargains 
advertised  in  Sunday's  papers. 

The  department-store  advertising  in  a  large  city 
is  duplicated  on  a  smaller  scale  in  every  department 
store  in  the  country,  but  it  can  be  best  described  by 
taking  the  method  of  a  large  store.  Such  a  depart- 
ment store  will  have  anywhere  from  fifty  to  two 
hundred  departments,  each  one  in  charge  of  a  compe- 
tent department  head,  who  very  often  and  generally 
is  the  buyer  for  that  department.  These  department 
heads  go  over  their  stock  constantly,  and  make  copious 
notes  for  the  benefit  of  the  advertising  manager,  de- 
scribing especially  some  new  or  attractive  goods,  or 
some  goods  which  for  some  reason  can  be  sold  at  a 
special  or  bargain  price.  This  vast  array  of  rough 
material  is  turned  over  to  the  advertising  manager, 
and  he  with  his  assistants,  in  conjunction  with  the 
manager  of  the  store,  single  out  from  this  mass  of 
descriptions  the  goods  which  are  to  be  made  the  feature 
of  the  next  advertisement. 


RETAIL  ADVERTISING  235 

Let  us  suppose  that  it  is  an  advertisement  for  the 
Sunday  papers,  and  that  it  will  occupy  a  page.  As 
early  in  the  week  as  possible  the  advertising  manager 
collects  his  reports  from  the  department  heads,  sifts 
out  his  stuff  and  gets  the  first  rough  draft  of  the  page 
advertisement  read.  Almost  every  week  the  work  is 
interrupted  at  the  last  moment  hy  the  addition  of  new 
and  attractive  goods  received  at  the  last  moment,  or 
a  lot  of  goods  which  for  some  cause  can  be  sold  at  a 
lower  price  than  was  expected.  .Not  until  the  papers 
go  to  press  is  the  manager  really  through  with  his 
work  upon  the  page  advertisement. 

While  the  advertisement  is  being  written  out  in 
typewriting,  artists  are  at  work  making  illustrations, 
or  going  over  proofs  of  cuts  already  made  to  select 
such  as  will  do.  Frequently  a  special  heading  for 
the  entire  advertisement  is  drawn.  For  instance,  a 
"  furniture  sale  "  or  "  white-goods  sale  "  will  have  an 
appropriate  design  covering  the  entire  top  of  the  ad- 
vertisement, even  though  the  advertisement  does  not 
treat  altogether  of  the  main  subject. 

When  everything  is  ready  the  advertisement  is  set 
in  type.  Some  of  the  best  department  stores  have 
their  own  printing  departments,  and  the  entire  ad- 
vertisement is  set  in  type  in  their  own  offices.  In 
other  cases  the  "  copy  "  and  cuts  are  sent  to  one  of  the 
newspaper  offices,  which  sets  up  the  advertisement, 
and  then  exchanges  matrices  with  the  other  news- 
papers. 

A  matrix  is  a  sheet  of  pulpy  paper,  like  blotting 
paper,  which  is  softened,  beaten  down  upon  the  page 
of  type  and  then  baked.  Removing  it,  one  finds  an 
exact  model  of  the  face  of  the  type.  Type  metal  then 


236  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

poured  into  it  produces  a  stereotype  of  the  advertise- 
ment, which  stereotype  can  be  used  to  print  from 
exactly  as  type. 

One  of  these  matrices  is  sent  to  each  newspaper 
office,  and  each  newspaper  casts  its  own  stereotype 
from  this  matrix.  This  can  only  be  done  to  advan- 
tage when  the  advertisement  occupies  an  entire  page, 
though  sometimes  a  smaller  advertisement  is  made 
in  this  way.  When  this  is  done,  the  stereotype  must 
be  made  from  the  matrix,  after  which  it  is  used  just 
as  a  regular  electrotype  or  cut  in  the  page  of  the 
paper,  and  a  second  stereotyped  plate  is  made  from 
the  entire  page. 

The  preparation  of  the  Sunday  announcement 
often  keeps  the  advertising  manager  and  some  of  his 
assistants  at  work  until  a  late  hour  Saturday  night, 
and  it  is  often  impossible  for  him  to  leave  until  every 
proof  has  been  approved. 

Sometimes  in  the  hurry  of  setting  an  advertise- 
ment on  the  part  of  a  newspaper,  an  error  will  be  made 
in  a  price.  If  the  error  is  one  which  makes  the  price 
more  favorable,  there  will  often  be  a  big  demand  for 
this  particular  article.  If  the  mistake  has  been  made 
by  the  store,  the  store  or  the  advertising  manager  must 
bear  the  loss.  If  the  mistake  has  been  made  by  the 
newspaper,  then  it  is  customary  to  send  a  bill  for  the 
difference  between  the  advertised  price  of  the  article, 
and  the  price  at  which  it  should  have  been  sold,  for 
the  entire  quantity  sold,  to  the  newspaper,  and  in 
nearly  every  case  such  bills  are  promptly  paid  by  the 
paper  in  question.  Such  an  instance  occurs  at  least 
once  in  the  history  of  nearly  every  department  store. 

The  work  of  the  advertising  manager  is  not  con- 


H.  White  Company  s^lS^ 


Now  for  the  Final  Clearance  Previous  to  the  Great  Inrush  of  Holiday  Goods 

~/~pcu:t  Mutt  b*  Had-'DtcK.f  Must  B«  CltartAfor  1h,  Chriftmtu  ^ftllmj 


They  Were  Exceptional  Values  Before  This  Price  Reduction— Now  They  Are  Incomparable 


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Come  in  and  Enjoy  Iti  Wonder. 
40c  ON  THE  DOLLAR  &J 


Opening  Sale  of 
25.00  Books  for  Christmas  Giving 


Dreuin«  Jackets,  Waittt,  Bath 


Little  W««.ii.  MUM.  u^  CiH«    Robes.    Flanne  ette  Goods, 


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rs-'S'KST-, 


THE   BOSTON   STYLE   OF   DEPARTMENT-STORE   ADVERTISING  RUNS 
TO   HEAVY   DISPLAY,    ESPECIALLY   OF  PRICES. 


238  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

fined  to  getting  up  the  regular  newspaper  advertise- 
ments. Large  department  stores  use  many  other 
mediums,  such  as  programs,  local  publications  not 
strictly  newspapers,  out-of-town  newspapers,  street-car 
space,  posters,  billboards,  painted  signs,  electric  signs, 
novelties  of  all  kinds,  and  in  addition  to  this  a  large 
volume  of  printed  matter,  all  of  which  comes  under 
the  jurisdiction  of  the  advertising  man. 

In  some  stores  the  window-dressing  is  made  a 
department  of  the  advertising  work.  In  others  it  is 
a  department  by  itself.  In  a  large  store  the  head 
window-trimmer  has  a  number  of  assistants.  The  art 
of  dressing  windows  attractively  has  become  a  spe- 
cialty by  itself,  and  some  men  are  very  expert  in  it. 
A  good  window-trimmer  commands  as  high  a  salary 
in  some  cases  as  an  advertising  man.  Of  course,  in 
a  strict  sense  he  is  an  advertising  man.  Successfully 
arranged  windows  are  a  strong  part  of  a  department- 
store's  advertising. 

The  printed  matter  'sent  out  by  a  department  store 
is  quite  a  business  by  itself.  Such  stores  issue  at  least 
one  general  catalogue,  and  a  large  number  of  special 
ones.  Then  there  are  circulars,  folders,  envelope-stufT- 
ers,  bundle  tickets  and  other  small  printed  things 
which  are  dropped  into  envelopes  or  bundles,  or  dis- 
tributed in  the  store.  Department  stores  sometimes 
publish  a  monthly  magazine  or  house  organ,  and  in 
the  case  of  some  stores  this  rises  to  the  dignity  of  a 
very  serious  magazine,  containing  fashion  news,  ar- 
ticles on  dress  and  toilet,  and  even  stories,  poems  and 
illustrations.  The  advertising  manager  must  prepare 
this  or  have  it  prepared  for  him. 

A  general  catalogue  is  prepared  because   a  big 


RETAIL  ADVERTISING 


239 


store  has  customers  covering  a  very  wide  territory. 
Often  a  store  which  does  not  regularly  solicit  mail- 
order business  receives  nevertheless  a  large  number 
of  orders  by  mail,  and  a  great  many  requests  for 
prices  and  descriptions  of  goods,  which  can  best  be 
answered  by  means  of  a  com- 
plete catalogue.  Some  depart- 
ment stores  encourage  mail- 
order business  and  regularly 
advertise  their  catalogue  over 
the  entire  country  in  national 
mediums,  but,  of  course,  stores 
which  do  this  are  in  this  case 
mail-order  advertisers,  and  such 
advertising  comes  under  that 
heading. 

Next  to  the  department 
stores,  the  largest  retail  adver- 
tisers are  the  clothing  stores. 
The  clothing-store  advertiser 
does  not  have  the  same  variety 
that  is  offered  by  the  depart- 
ment store,  but  in  itself  this  ad- 
vertising is  often  carried  very 

far.  One  large  retail  clothing  store,  which  main- 
tains three  different  branches  in  New  York  City, 
has  done  for  years  retail  advertising  which  has  a 
national  reputation.  This  store  is  known  as  Rogers, 
Peet  &  Company,  and  the  Rogers-Peet  style  of  adver- 
tising would  be  recognized  by  any  one  familiar  with 
advertising. 

Tt  is  a  curious  fact  that  there  is  not  and  never 
was  any  member  of  the  firm  bearing  either  the  name 
17 


"English  squares." 

Four-in-hands. 

A  quantity  of  rich  scarfs  that 
we've  had  on  our  shelves  at  $i 
and  fivSO— about  half  at  each 
price. 

85  cents. 
ROGERS,  PEKT  &  COMPANY. 


THE   ROGERS-PEET 
STYLE. 


240  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

of  Rogers  or  of  Peet.  The  men  behind  this  business, 
for  some  reason,  invented  the  euphonious  name, 
"  Rogers,  Peet  &  Company,"  and  under  that  name 
the  business  has  grown  to  large  proportions.  Adopt- 
ing a  fictitious  name  for  a  big  business  is  unusual 
in  this  country,  although  in  England  it  is  a  very  com- 
mon thing  indeed.  Another  very  noteworthy  instance 
in  the  advertising  world  is  that  of  Perry  Mason  & 
Company,  for  over  seventy  years  the  publishers  of  the 
Youth's  Companion.  When  the  Youth's  Companion 
was  started  it  was  such  a  trivial  thing,  and  had  so 
little  chance  of  success,  that  its  founders  decided  to 
do  business  under  a  fictitious  name.  As  the  years 
rolled  by  the  publication  of  the  Youth's  Companion 
became  the  largest  enterprise  of  its  founders,  and 
proved  a  very  profitable  one,  but  in  all  that  time  and 
up  till  now  the  business  name  of  the  house  has  been 
Perry  Mason  &  Company,  although  no  one  of  that 
name  has  ever  been  connected  with  the  business. 

To  return  to  the  advertising  of  Rogers,  Peet  & 
Company,  this  house  is  famous  not  only  for  its  unique 
newspaper  advertising,  but  also  for  its  printed  matter. 
A  great  many  catalogues,  booklets,  folders  and  bundle 
tickets  are  used  in  the  advertising  of  the  three  stores. 
Street-car  advertising  and  even  poster  work  is  in- 
dulged in.  Everything  that  goes  out  of  the  store, 
including  the  boxes,  bundles  and  envelopes,  is  utilized 
for  attractive,  refined  and  dignified  advertising.  By 
tricks  of  type  and  designing  a  certain  definite  individ- 
uality is  given  to  each  piece  of  advertising,  so  that, 
however  diversified  the  use  to  which  it  is  put,  it  can 
be  recognized  at  a  glance.  This  idea  is  one  that  is 
gradually  appealing  to  more  advertisers  as  time  goes 


RETAIL  ADVERTISING  241 

on.  To  accomplish  it  successfully  requires  consider- 
able ability. 

The  retail-clothing  advertiser  of  the  small  town 
is  greatly  helped  by  what  is  known  as  ready-made 
advertisements.  These  are  advertisements  which  have 
been  designed  and  written  by  the  advertising  depart- 
ment of  a  wholesale  clothier.  The  wholesale  clothier, 
in  consideration  of  the  purchase  of  his  clothing  by  a 
retailer,  will  supply  that  retailer  with  a  set  of  ready- 
made  advertisements,  consisting  of  electrotypes  of 
attractive  cuts  and  the  reading  matter  to  'go  with 
them.  The  retail  clothier  will  buy  space  in  his  local 
newspapers  and  pay  for  it  himself,  using  the  cuts 
and  copy  furnished  by  the  manufacturer,  signing  it, 
however,  with  his  own  name  and  address. 

By  such  plans  as  this  the  advertising  of  the  retail 
clothier  has  been  made  a  great  deal  better  than  that 
of  the  ordinary  run  of  retail  advertising  in  the  same 
town.  So  successful  has  this  plan  been  in  securing 
a  great  deal  of  advertising  for  the  manufacturer,  that 
it  is  now  being  adopted  in  other  lines.  Ready-made 
advertisements  are  furnished  by  manufacturers  of 
shoes,  furniture,  carpets,  underwear,  hats,  gloves,  ties 
and  other  things.  The  design  and  advertising  fur- 
nished by  the  manufacturer  always  bear  strongly  upon 
the  merits  of  his  own  product,  of  course.  Large  re- 
tailers often  carry  the  products  of  several  manufac- 
turers, from  all  of  whom  they  obtain  cuts  and  adver- 
tisements which  are  useful. 

Retail  advertising  depends  entirely  upon  direct 
results.  A  retailer  can  put  an  advertisement  in  a 
newspaper  and  know  when  his  store  opens  the  next 
morning  whether  it  has  paid  or  not.  The  general  ad- 


242  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

vertiser  knows  only  in  a  general  way,  by  the  volume 
of  business.  The  retailer  knows  by  the  actual  number 
of  requests  for  a  given  article  advertised  at  a  given 
price.  In  its  direct  results  retail  advertising  bears 
a  close  relation  to  mail-order  advertising.  The  same 
quality  of  direct  appeal  is  required  to  make  it  success- 
ful. The  possibilities  of  successful  retail  advertising 
are  almost  unlimited,  but  its  possibilities  are  seldom 
realized,  because  a  man  running  a  retail  store  in  a 
small  town  is  not  the  man  who  appreciates  the  great 
possibilities  of  successful  advertising.  When  he  is, 
he  soon  ceases  to  be  where  he  is. 

It  will  be  noticed  that  some  towns  and  cities  have 
better  retail  advertising  than  others.  In  a  town  where 
the  retail  advertising  is  good,  it  is  all  good.  This  is 
due  frequently  to  some  very  enterprising  newspaper 
which  has  fostered  and  encouraged  good  advertising. 
Some  newspapers — and  not  all  of  them  are  located 
in  large  cities — possess  regularly  organized  adverti- 
sing departments,  which  are  placed  at  the  service  of 
the  retailer  to  prepare  his  copy  and  designs  for  the 
local  newspapers.  This,  too,  has  its  effect  in  improv- 
ing the  advertising  that  is  done. 

Outside  of  specific  instances,  such  as  unusually 
successful  retail  advertisers,  the  great  bulk  of  retail 
advertising  is  comparatively  unimportant.  This 
means  that  the  individual  advertising  is  not  very 
good  and  is  frequently  very  unsuccessful.  Taken  as 
a  whole,  however,  the  retail  advertising  in  this  coun- 
try is  the  largest  and  most  important  advertising  done. 

The  importance  of  retail  advertising  depends  upon 
the  number  of  people  engaged  in  it.  There  are  not 
more  than  a  thousand  national  advertisers,  large  and 


RETAIL  ADVERTISING  243 

small,  while  there  are  hundreds  of  thousands  of  retail 
advertisers.  It  is  on  this  account  that  all  books  writ- 
ten about  advertising  up  till  now  have  been  books  de- 
voted to  the  problems  of  the  retailer.  There  have  been 
over  a  dozen  of  these  books,  no  one  of  which  does  more 
than  touch  upon  the  subject  of  general  advertising,  if 
it  does  that.  A  book  intended  to  help  general  adver- 
tisers would  have  a  small  sale.  Advertising  books 
have  been  written  to  make  money  and,  therefore,  have 
been  sold  on  the  theory  that  they  are  helpful  to  the 
retailer,  and  they  generally  are. 

The  fact  that  the  advertising  problem  of  each  re- 
tailer is  repeated  in  each  different  town  has  made  it 
possible  to  build  up  what  is  known  as  syndicate  work. , 
An  advertising  syndicate  supplies  copy  and  designs 
to  retailers  at  a  very  small  cost  by  selling  the  same 
cut  and  the  same  advertisement  in  each  town.  The 
advertising  of  a  retailer  does  not  generally  conflict 
with  the  advertising  of  a  man  in  the  same  line  of 
business  in  the  next  town.  There  are,  for  instance, 
forty  thousand  hardware  dealers  in  this  country,  a 
great  many  of  whom  advertise.  A  syndicate  can  af- 
ford to  pay  a  good  price  for  a  design  of  a  sufficiently 
general  nature  so  as  to  fit  almost  any  store.  This 
design,  together  with  the  copy,  is  sold  to  as  many  re- 
tailers as  will  buy  it,  electrotypes  of  the  cut  being 
furnished.  The  local  retail  dealer  either  uses  the  copy 
as  written,  or  changes  it  to  fit  some  particular  case 
in  his  own  announcements. 

Service  like  this  has  been  , sold  for  as  little  as 
twenty-five  cents  for  each  advertisement,  but  the  bet- 
ter sort  of  service  costs  from  fifty  cents  to  a  dollar 
per  advertisement.  A  retailer  contracts  for  so  many 


244  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

cuts  with  copy  per  week,  and  these  are  received,  not 
all  at  once,  but  from  time  to  time.  This  is  one  rea- 
son why  the  retail  advertising  of  the  country  has  been 
so  greatly  improved  in  the  last  fifteen  years. 

In  the  last  ten  years  nearly  every  kind  of  retail 
business  has  been  advertised.  Local  corporations 
holding  a  monopoly  for  supplying  some  of  the  necessi- 
ties of  life,  have  adopted  advertising  to  increase  the 
number  of  their  customers,  even  when  there  is  no  com- 
petition. The  newspapers  are  used  by  gas  companies, 
telephone  companies,  electric  lighting  companies, 
water  companies,  various  street  railway  and  rapid 
transit  lines  and  other  interests  not  at  one  time  con- 
sidered as  advertisers. 

This  development  of  advertising  has  become  very 
interesting,  and  it  has  been  very  successful.  When 
there  is  only  one  gas  company  in  a  town,  everybody 
who  wishes  to  use  gas  must  go  to  that  company,  but 
in  every  town  there  are  a  large  number  of  people  who 
persist  in  burning  kerosene,  who  can  be  persuaded  to 
adopt  gas.  There  are  people  who  have  gas  in  their 
houses  for  illuminating,  who  have  not  thought  of  it 
for  cooking.  Intelligent  advertising  for  gas  consump- 
tion skilfully  teaches  people  that  it  is  better  to  cook 
with  gas.  Some  companies  offer  a  gas-range  free. 
Some  offer  to  equip  a  house  with  gas-jets.  Others 
rent  a  gas-range  for  a  nominal  sum.  In  various  ways 
these  companies  extend  their  business  by  advertising, 
despite  the  fact  that  they  have  no  competition.  Such 
advertising  may  be  classed  as  retail  advertising. 


CHAPTER  X 

MAIL-OEDER    ADVERTISING 

ADVERTISING  has  been  divided  into  general,  retail 
and  mail-order  advertising.  Mail-order  advertising 
is  that  department  of  advertising  and  of  merchandis- 
ing whereby  goods  are  sold  direct  to  the  consumer  by 
mail,  the  consumer  in  most  cases  living  remote  from 
the  mail-order  house. 

Mail-order  advertising  resembles  general  advertis- 
ing in  that  it  is  spread  all  over  the  country,  but  it 
resembles  retail  advertising  in  that  the  goods  adver- 
tised are  sold  direct,  the  mails  being  the  medium  of 
transmission  of  the  advertisement  of  the  goods,  of  the 
catalogue  still  further  describing  them,  of  the  money- 
order  to  pay  for  them,  and  finally  of  the  goods  them- 
selves, when  small  enough  to  be  sent  by  mail,  but 
otherwise  they  go  by  express  or  freight. 

The  mail-order  business,  supplying  as  it  does  a 
real  need,  has  grown  to  mammoth  proportions.  Many 
large  houses  are  engaged  in  it,  and  the  volume  of  their 
business  as  well  as  the  amount  of  their  advertising 
compares  with  that  of  the  largest  general  advertisers. 
This  advertising  does  not,  as  a  rule,  appear  in  the 
magazines  that  we  know  as  such,  though  some  of  them, 
and  especially  the  weeklies  and  women's  papers,  carry 
a  certain  amount  of  mail-order  advertising. 

The  great  bulk  of  such  advertising  is  to  be  found 

246 


246  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

in  the  mail-order  papers,  publications  which  reach  es- 
pecially the  class  of  people  living  in  remote  and  not 
easily  accessible  parts  of  the  country,  or  in  country 
districts  and  on  farms  near  villages  not  well  supplied 
with  stores.  Such  people  depend  upon  the  mail-order 
houses  for  a  large  number  of  things  they  can  not  buy 
in  the  village  general  store,  or  if  they  can  buy  them, 
not  at  such  low  prices.  These  people  make  up  the 
regular  readers  of  the  mail-order  papers  and  are  the 
regular  customers  of  the  mail-order  houses.  The  gen- 
eral advertiser  advertises  to  reach  the  consumer,  but 
his  goods  are  delivered  by  the  retailer  through  his  own 
store.  The  mail-order  advertiser  advertises  to  reach 
the  consumer,  but  delivers  the  goods  himself  by  mail, 
express  or  freight. 

The  growth  of  the  mail-order  business  has  been 
due  to  the  fact  that  three-fourths  of  the  population 
of  the  United  States  live  in  the  country  or  in  towns 
and  villages  remote  from  anything  in  the  way  of  a 
distributing  center  of  goods  other  than  the  village 
store. 

It  really  stands  for  a  great  expansion  of  the  meth- 
ods of  a  retail  store  wherein  a  tremendous  volume  of 
business  covering  the  entire  country,  and  the  privilege 
of  buying  goods  in  factory  lots  as  it  were,  have  made 
it  possible  to  offer  prices  which  even  the  big  depart- 
ment stores  are  scarcely  able  to  meet.  The  problem 
of  a  mail-order  business  is  to  defray,  not  only  the  cost 
of  the  goods,  but  also  the  cost  of  selling  them,  which 
includes  advertising  in  a  large  number  of  mail-order 
papers. 

To  such  great  proportions  has  this  business  devel- 
oped that  it  is  said  that  in  Chicago  alone  the  mail-order 


MAIL-ORDER  ADVERTISING  247 

houses  do  a  business  aggregating  fifty  million  dollars 
a  year,  most  of  which  is  controlled  by  three  houses. 
The  three  firms  whose  names  are  best  known  in  con- 
nection with  this  business  are  Sears,  Roebuck  &  Com- 
pany, Montgomery,  Ward  &  Company,  and  John  M. 
Smythe  Company.  It  is  said  that  these  three  houses 
receive  an  average  of  twenty-five  thousand  orders  or 
letters  every  day.  They  issue  elaborate  catalogues  in 
which  their  wares  are  described  in  a  way  to  convince 
people  that  better  bargains  ane  offered  than  can  be 
given  by  local  dealers  in  theif  towns.  One  of  these 
catalogues,  that  of  Sears,  Roebuck  &  Company,  weighs 
about  four  pounds,  contains  1,200  pages,  of  three 
columns  each,  and  describes  nearly  every  article  of 
human  need  or  luxury.  To  mail  one  edition  of  this 
catalogue  costs  in  postage  alone  $640,000.  The 
amount  spent  by  this  house  in  advertising  is  still 
larger,  and  to  this  must  be  added  the  postage  and 
printing  of  a  great  amount  of  literature,  as  well  as 
the  regular  correspondence. 

"  The  history  of  Sears,  Roebuck  &  Company," 
says  the  Mail  Order  Journal,  "  conveys  an  idea  of 
the  great  opportunities  the  mail-order  business  offers 
to  enterprising  business  men.  This  firm  is  only  a  few 
years  old.  Mr.  Sears  started  originally  in  the  jewelry 
and  watch  business,  selling  watches  and  jewelry  by 
mail,  through  advertising  in  mail-order  papers.  Af- 
ter a  short  existence  in  Chicago,  Mr.  Sears  removed 
to  Minneapolis,  where  he  associated  himself  with  Mr. 
Roebuck,  but  after  a  few  years  this  firm  removed 
its  establishment  to  Chicago.  This  took  place  at  a 
time  when  the  country  was  in  the  midst  of  an  un- 
paralleled commercial  crisis.  Business  was  par- 


248  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

alyzed ;  industry  stagnant ;  labor  suffering  and  farm- 
ers impoverished  by  bad  crops.  It  was  thus  during 
the  hardest  times  that  this  business  was  started.  Its 
capital  was  not  very  great,  but  its  confidence  in  the 
future  of  the  mail-order  business  made  up  what  was 
lacking  in  money.  By  a  thorough  knowledge  of  the 
requirements  of  the  mail-order  trade,  by  strict  econ- 
omy in  its  management,  by  shrewdness  in  buying 
goods  and  advertising  space,  it  built  up  one  of  the 
largest,  if  not  the  largest,  mail-order  business  in  the 
country.  Together  with  Montgomery,  Ward  &  Com- 
pany, and  John  M.  Smythe  Company,  it  is  practically 
monopolizing  the  entire  mail-order  business  in  the  gen- 
eral field.  These  concerns  are  enormous  department 
stores  for  mail-order  buyers.  There  are  25,000,000 
inhabitants  in  the  small  towns  and  villages,  and 
nearly  30,000,000  farmers.  This  country  has  ample 
room  for  several  dozen  large  mail-order  houses. 
These  three  firms  can  not  supply  the  entire  demand 
of  the  population  whose  facilities  for  trading  by  mail 
are  constantly  being  increased  by  the  extension  of  the 
rural  free  delivery.  The  full  development  of  the 
rural  free-delivery  service  will  bring  dozens  of  gen- 
eral mail-order  houses  into  existence.  There  is  no 
better  field  of  commerce  open  at  present  than  the  mail- 
order trade,  and  the  sooner  merchants  avail  themselves 
of  this  splendid  opportunity,  the  surer  they  are  of  suc- 
cess and  of  building  up  a  large  and  lucrative  trade." 
As  suggested  by  this  extract,  the  introduction  of 
rural  free  delivery  has  greatly  stimulated  the  business 
of  selling  goods  by  mail.  Rural  free  delivery  offers 
a  double  advantage.  First,  the  distribution,  promptly 
and  direct  to  the  subscriber,  of  various  publications 


MAIL-ORDER  ADVERTISING  249 

carrying  mail-order  advertising,  and  second,  the  dis- 
tribution of  goods  small  enough  to  be  delivered  by 
mail,  which  comprise  most  of  the  goods  sold  by  mail- 
order advertising. 

The  government  -report  for  1903  shows  19,398 
rural  free-delivery  routes  covering  494,950  miles  of 
country  roads,  and  delivering  mail  daily  to  a  popula- 
tion of  twelve  million  not  living  in  towns  and  villages. 
.The  number  of  pieces  of  mail  carried  in  six  months 
from  these  routes  was  307,428,128.  Many  of  these 
people  would  not  otherwise  receive  mail  oftener  than 
once  a  week,  and  during  the  busy  summer  seasons  or 
during  bad  weather  as  infrequently  as.  once  a  month. 
It  is  estimated  that,  with  the  appropriations  now  avail- 
able, 3,260  additional  routes  will  have  been  opened 
before  this  book  is  published,  making  the  total  routes 
in  operation  in  1904  some  22,678. 

Only  one  county  has  had  rural  free  delivery  long 
enough  to  offer  a  basis  of  comparison.  Such  com- 
parison shows  the  following  remarkable  percentages  of 
increase:  Letters,  15  per  cent. ;  postal  cards,  18  per 
cent. ;  registered  mail,  21  per  cent. ;  circulars,  139 
per  cent. ;  packages,  35  per  cent. ;  money-orders,  70 
per  cent.  The  plan  laid  out  by  the  government  calls 
for  the  development  of  forty  thousand  such  routes 
within  the  next  few  years.  The  service  offered  by 
this  postal-delivery  system  brings  the  advertiser's 
offers  and  the  goods  themselves  direct  to  the  door-steps 
of  the  country  population.  This  thing  has  given  a 
greatly  increased  stimulus  to  mail-order  advertising. 

The  possibilities  of  the  mail-order  business  are 
made  very  clear  by  a  few  statistics  from  the  last  cen- 
sus. The  1900  census  shows  that  46,647,848  people 


250  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

out  of  an  actual  population  of  75,994,514,  or  62.7 
per  cent.,  live  in  villages  or  on  farms.  The  usual  al- 
lowance of  five  people  to  a  family  gives  9,329,569 
homes.  Into  every  one  of  these  homes  from  which 
any  business  could  be  expected  it  is  safe  to  say  that 
at  least  one  mail-order  paper  penetrates. 

The  growth  of  the  mail-order  business  has  led  to 
the  creation  of  new  and  the  rapid  development  of  other 
mail-order  papers.  The  gregariousness  of  business, 
even  in  publishing,  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  at  Au- 
gusta, Me.,  are  published  eleven  of  these  different 
mail-order  papers.  Other  such  publications  are  scat- 
tered all  over  the  United  States.  Three  come  from 
Waterville,  Me.  One  publisher  in  New  York  has  a 
string  of  five.  Forty-one  such  papers  show  an  aggre- 
gate circulation  of  12,300,000,  and  an  aggregate  price 
for  space  of  $37.21^  per  agate  line,  which  is  lower 
than  the  average  cost  per  thousand  of  circulation  in 
the  general  magazines. 

Mail-order  papers  are  all  of  the  same  character. 
They  are  clean.  Their  reading  matter,  while  not  of 
the  highest  literary  sort,  is  innocuous.  The  paper 
upon  which  they  are  printed  will  not  admit  of  half- 
tone pictures.  The  advertising  is  set  in  the  densest 
possible  form,  so  as  to  get  the  greatest  number  of 
words  in  the  smallest  amount  of  space.  The  chief 
consideration  in  a  mail-order  advertisement  is  to  get 
a  full  description  of  the  article  in  the  smallest  possible 
space.  This  is  the  sort  of  advertising  in  which  an 
explicit  description  and  the  price  must  always  be 
given.  The  more  complete  and  enthusiastic  the  de- 
scription, the  larger  the  returns  from  the  adver- 
tising. A  well-known  mail-order  expert  has  said  that 


THE  READER  MAGAZINE  ADVERTISEMENTS 


ON 
CREDIT 

r'-S*  ' 


We  Are  Ready  to  Send  on  Approval 

_i  Diamond,  Watch  or  any  article  that  you  may  select  from  oar  beautifully  illustrated 
catalogue.     Write  for  a  copy  today  —  sent  promptly,  no  charge,  postage  fully  prepaid. 

You  Pay  No  Money  ,""  iSUQuamJf  s" 

Cash  Or  Credit,  favorable  conditions  than  you  ca 
credit  terms  are  one-fifth  on  delivery,  balance  In  eight  equal  monthly  payments.    Any  honest  person 
can  comm..nd  all  the  desirable  features  of  the  Loftli'  System  on  credit  terms.    FOR.  CASH:    We 

make  a  discount  of  8£.  and  to  every  cash  purchaser  (when  requested  to  do  so),  we  give  our  Money 

Back  Within  One  Year  agreement.    It  is  the  most  liberal  provision  ever  made  in  selling  merchandise 

of  any  kind. 

LIBERAL  FEATURES:    We  send  goods  for  Inspection  without  any  advan 


change  for  other  goods  or  a  larger  £ 


ever  sold  by  us  at 
nthly 


THE   LOFT1S1  SYSTEM    of  selling  diamonds  all   over  the   country  on   easy  it 
•yments  is  broad  enough  and  liberal  mouoh  to  furnish  a  beautiful  diamond  or  high-grade 
match  to  every  person  who  can  pay  a  few  dollars  monthly  on  account  while  wearing 
the  diamond  or  watch.    The  Loftls'  System  is  freely  open  to  you.     Write  today  for 
catalogue  and  full  information.    It  costs  nothing  to  examine  a  diamond  or  watch; 
It  costs  very  little  to  buy  on  our  easy  terms. 

A«    In.rJ***-^**      If  you  vtolt  the  8t.  Loul.  Erpo«ltloii  we  Invite  you  to  visit  end  Inspect  oor 
n   Invitation,    migni«.cent  exhibit -the  Urge.t  and  nne»  dbplay  of  diamond,  and 
precious  nlonexe  vcr  made  In  America,. nd  probably  the  movt  Intererttng  and  valuable  exhibit     A 
at  the  Wor.d'.  Fair.    Our  dtumoiH!  •  .- *dly  and  courteously  show  you 

every  proees*  of  cleavlnir.  cutting  and  polt.hlnff,  from  the  rough  diamond!)  In  the  blue 
k       ear  th,  a.  taken  from  the  mines  In  South  Africa,  to  the  perfectly  cut  and  poll&bed     A 
gem*.    Do  not  fail  to  are  It. 


LOFTIS  BROS. 


HEARTS 


A  HIGH-CLASS   MAIL-ORDER   ADVERTISEMENT  AS  USED   IN 
MAGAZINES. 


252  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

there  are  only  two  sizes  for  a  mail-order  advertise- 
ment. It  should  either  be  large  enough  to  tell  the 
entire  story  or  small  enough  to  induce  the  reader  to 
send  for  a  full  descriptive  circular. 

There  is  the  widest  possible  difference  between 
general  advertising  for  mere  publicity  and  mail-order 
advertising  for  direct  results.  The  general  advertiser 
is  merely  trying  to  stamp  his  name  and  trade-mark 
upon  the  minds  of  a  large  number  of  people,  so  that 
when  they  want  his  article  they  will  be  induced  to 
ask  for  it  at  their  stores. 

Mail-order  advertising,  on  the  other  hand,  tries 
to  produce  so  strong  an  impression  upon  the  desire 
of  the  readers  that  they  will  send  the  amount  named 
in  the  advertisement  for  the  article  described  imme- 
diately. Mail-order  advertising  is  in  this  respect 
more  nearly  like  that  of  the  department  store.  In 
each  case  direct  and  immediate  results  are  expected. 
An  advertisement  which  does  not  pay  immediately 
will  never  pay.  When  the  advertising  manager  of  a 
department  store  puts  an  announcement  in  the  even- 
ing papers  he  knows  next  morning,  as  soon  as  the 
doors  of  the  store  are  opened,  whether  or  not  it  has 
been  successful.  When  a  mail-order  advertiser 
puts  his  announcement  in  a  mail-order  paper  he 
knows  when  the  first  mail  is  in  whether  or  not  it 
has  paid. 

It  is  said  that  in  order  to  conduct  a  mail-order 
business  profitably  the  actual  cost  of  the  article  should 
be  about  one-third  of  the  selling  price.  One-third  is  al- 
lowed for  the  advertising,  and  the  other  third  is  profit. 
Undoubtedly  the  successful  mail-order  houses  which 
sell  by  mail  every  conceivable  article  from  a  thresh- 


MAIL-ORDER  ADVERTISING  253 

ing  machine  down  to  a  cambric  needle,  do  business 
on  a  far  smaller  margin  of  profit  than  this.  They 
have  such  a  well-organized  distributing  force,  and  they 
carry  so  many  articles  that  there  is  very  little  waste 
in  their  advertising. 

The  woman  who  reads  an  advertisement  of  a 
ready-trimmed  hat  for  $1.68  and  sends  in  her  money, 
gets  a  catalogue  weighing  some  four  pounds.  Out 
of  that  catalogue  she  and  her  family  and  her  friends 
are  apt  to  buy  a  good  many  other  things,  so  that  the 
business  does  not  depend  upon  the  immediate  results 
of  the  advertising  but  upon  these  cumulative  orders 
which  come  in  from  time  to  time.  With  such  a  pow- 
erful selling  force  as  a  complete  catalogue  covering 
every  article  that  can  be  conceived,  these  mail-order 
houses  build  up  a  great  business. 

The  writing  of  successful  mail-order  advertising 
is  just  as  much  a  specialty  as  the  writing  of  adver- 
tising to  exploit  the  goods  of  a  manufacturer  through 
the  ordinary  channels  of  trade.  It  requires  espe- 
cially an  innate  and  unusual  knowledge  of  human 
nature.  Such  advertising  appeals  to  ordinary,  com- 
monplace people.  It  should  not  aim  above  their  heads. 
It  is  simply  as  complete  and  enthusiastic  a  descrip- 
tion of  the  article  advertised  as  can  be  given,  to  which 
is  added  an  illustration  more  or  less  accurate,  and 
the  price.  Then  follows  explicit  and,  what  would 
seem  to  many  people,  unnecessary  detailed  informa- 
tion as  to  the  way  of  sending  money.  It  should  be 
borne  in  mind  that  the  kind  of  people  who  answer 
mail-order  advertising  are  not  used  to  the  ordinary 
methods  of  business.  The  mail  of  a  house  of  this 
kind  shows  how  large  a  proportion  of  its  customers 


254  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

are  unused  to  the  simplest  details  of  sending  money 
by  mail. 

The  man  who  can  write  mail-order  advertising 
best  is  the  man  who  reads  the  letters  of  the  people  who 
buy  his  goods.  Tie  soon  knows  exactly  what  terms 
to  use  in  describing  any  given  article.  This  is  some- 


BHUTIFULT  I  HIT 

HHeL^^JInl'SWnFS 


d 'if  youdo  not  say  It  l«  a  value  that  U  (Imply  aston 
tag  ie  prettiest!  mOBtetylUh  and  b.woinlnjfhat  you  .re?  saw,  If 
do*  'tb.llev.lt  1.  worth  .very  cent  of  »».O?.  return  It  to  us  and 


Hind  mad*  on  a  allk  wire  (ram*.    The  shape  has  a  graceful 

pointed  dent  In  back.    The  facing  U  made  of  shirred  and  stIU 

Loulslne  silk,  wblle  the  trimming  is  overlaid  with  band  shli 

Mune  .itending  In  gathered  folds  to  the  bell  crown,  which  Is  made  of  black  silk  hair 

braid.    Black  satin  and  stlk  flowers  and  black  satin  foliage  are  beautifully  arranged 

In  front  of  the  crown  and  side  of  brim.    The  trimming  of  part  of  the  crown  and  part 

of  the  brim  Is  overlaid  with  black  silk  Chantllly  lace,  which  extends  In  folds  to  the /f 

back  of  crown.      A  prettily  designed,  new  shaped  gilt  ornament  Is  artistically (^ 

arranged  below  the  shirred  silk  chiffon,  while  a  loop  of  gold  cord  Is  arranged 

the  left  facing  extending  to  the  bandeau.     Bandeau  Is  trimmed  with  blsck  silk  ai 

satin  foliate  and  black  silk  lace.    The  hat  as  described,  In  all  black  with  gold  con 

tlful  appearance,  but  can  also  be  ordered  In  WHITE,  PINK  or  LIGHT  BLUE 

*  i    Q  ft  barely  cover*  the  cost  of  material.    We  make  this  extremely  low  price  merely  as  an  advertisement  for 

51  iSJU  our  millinery  department    It  you  order  this  new.  stylish,  richly  designed  dress  hat  you  will  be  saving 

more  than  one-half  In  prlcVTyou  will  be  getting  one  of  the  handsomest  .tylei  that  will  be  shown,  a  hat  that 
:lty  style  and  dlstlnctlveness  In  everyTeature.  Our  free  Millinery  Catalogue,  sent  on  request,  shows 
I  astonishingly  low  prices  on  our  complete  line  of  spring  and  summer  hats,  shapes,  trim- 
!  fO«  OOR  ml  laces,  velvet,  ornaments,  feathers,  ribbons  etc.  Verv  Interesting  to  .very  lady, 
SaTai'n&V  Including  those  In  the  millinery  businese  or  thinking  of  starting  in  the  profitable 

,  ROEBUCK  &  CO.,  CHICAGO,  ILL. 


:arrles  city  styl.  i 


A  TYPICAL   MAIL-ORDER   ADVERTISEMENT. 

thing  that  it  is  difficult  for  the  ordinary  advertising 
writer  to  do  unless  he  has  had  actual  experience. 

Besides  the  mail-order  houses  which  handle  every 
kind  of  goods  as  do  Sears,  Roebuck  &  Company, 
Montgomery,  Ward  &  Company,  and  John  M.  Smythe 
Company,  there  are  a  large  number  of  houses  which 
sell  only  one  kind  of  goods  as,  for  instance,  houses 
which  make  a  business  of  selling  cheap  carriages 
direct  by  mail.  Such  houses  are  known  to  the  trade 
with  which  they  compete  as  "  catalogue "  houses. 
Among  the  houses  that  have  built  up  catalogue  busi- 
ness in  special  lines  are  piano  and  organ  makers,  car- 


MAIL-ORDER  ADVERTISING  255 

riage  builders,  and  various  furniture  houses.  Not 
all  of  these  concerns  run  their  own  plants ;  in  some 
cases  they  contract  for  the  output  of  a  whole  factory, 
or  they  buy  a  part  of  a  plant,  the  articles  made  for 
them  being  of  the  cheapest  sort.  To  give  an  idea  of 
how  cheap  this  is,  it  may  be  said  that  carriages  are 
sold  by  mail  as  low  as  $14.95. 

The  retailer  in  such  goods  always  considers  the 
catalogue  house  as  his  greatest  enemy.  He  has  the 
same  feeling  toward  them  that  the  small  retailer  had 
toward  the  large  department  store.  And  in  each  case 
the  triumph  of  the  concern  with  the  large  capital, 
great  buying  power  and  sweeping  advertising  is  in- 
evitable. 

Mail-order  advertising,  as  we  have  seen,  brings 
in  a  large  number  of  replies,  about  equally  divided 
between  those  who  send  cash  with  the  order,  and  those 
who  write  for  further  information.  All  large  mail- 
order houses  have  a  catalogue  which  is  mentioned  in 
each  advertisement.  This  catalogue  is  mailed  some- 
times free,  and  sometimes  in  return  for  postage,  and 
from  this  catalogue  customers  continue  to  order,  in 
many  cases  for  several  years.  The  amount  paid  for 
the  catalogue  is  generally  refunded  on  the  first  order. 

A  certain  percentage  of  all  inquirers  fail  to  pur- 
chase for  a  number  of  reasons.  They  may  be  idle 
curiosity  seekers,  or  they  may  not  have  been  suffi- 
ciently convinced.  All  progressive  mail-order  houses 
have  a  system  of  form  letters  which  are  mailed 
promptly  to  all  inquirers  after  a  certain  time.  In 
some  cases,  especially  when  the  article  which  drew 
out  the  inquiry  is  of  considerable  value,  a  follow-up 
system  is  kept  up  for  a  number  of  times  and  always 
18 


256  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

brings  in  a  certain  percentage  of  orders  which  would 
not  otherwise  have  been  secured.  It  is  also  true  that 
customers  who  buy  articles  by  mail  are  apt  to  be 
steady  customers.  Houses  which  make  a  business  of 
this  sort  of  work  keep  these  names  and  send  circulars 
enclosing  offers  from  time  to  time. 

An  advertiser  who  has  sold  a  popular  book  by 
mail  for  a  number  of  years  said  that  it  took  him  at 
least  six  months  to  write  a  successful  advertisement 
of  a  new  book.  He  would  try  it  in  various  publica- 
tions, and  as  the  responses  came  in  he  would  correct, 
alter,  change  or  revise  the  advertisement  to  answer  the 
questions  most  frequently  asked  by  inquirers.  In  this 
way  he  finally  produced  an  advertisement  which  fitted 
every  apparent  demand.  This  advertisement  as 
finally  arranged  he  repeated  over  and  over  again  in 
all  publications,  in  some  cases  running  it  for  two  and 
even  three  years.  This  same  advertisement  would 
bring  in  hundreds  of  thousands  of  inquirers  and  sell 
the  book  to  a  large  proportion  of  them.  A  single  half- 
page  magazine  advertisement  is  said  to  have  brought 
in  $45,000  on  the  first  insertion  for  a  single  book. 

The  general  method  followed  is  to  repeat  an  ad- 
vertisement in  a  given  publication  until  it  ceases  to 
draw.  It  is  then  inserted  in  other  publications  and 
so  on.  After  it  has  been  around  a  certain  number 
of  times,  a  new  article  is  submitted  and  the  list  is 
gone  through  again.  After  a  year  or  so  the  same  ar- 
ticle can  again  be  offered.  The  general  mail-order 
houses  have  such  a  large  supply  of  articles  that  they 
can  offer  frequent  changes  of  seasonable  and  timely 
goods. 

A  variation  of  the  mail-order  business  is  what  is 


MAIL-ORDER  ADVERTISING  257 

known  as  letter-brokerage.  For  instance,  a  concern 
having  advertised  has  received  a  large  number  of  re- 
plies which  are  afterward  rented  or  sold.  A  set  of 
letters  thus  received  in  reply  to  an  advertisement  for 
a  patent  medicine  would  be  particularly  valuable  to 
another  man  selling  a  similar  remedy.  Letters  from 
people  who  send  money  for  articles  advertised  are  al- 
ways valuable  to  any  mail-order  advertiser. 

This  business  is  more  or  less  legitimate,  accord- 
ing to  the  people  who  practise  it,  though,  of  course, 
it  is  open  to  abuses.  One  flagrant  instance  of  abuse 
was  that  of  a  concern  which  advertised  a  remedy  for 
a  certain  disease,  which  remedy  contained  nothing 
more  than  salt  and  water.  The  advertiser  did  a  prof- 
itable business,  selling  it  at  a  dollar  a  bottle  until  the 
post-office  department  found  it  out  and  issued  a  fraud 
order  stopping  the  advertiser's  mail.  The  advertiser 
then  promptly  moved  to  a  new  location,  taking  with 
him  the  letters  he  had  received  from  his  victims. 
He  gave  his  remedy  a  new  name,  put  a  new  wrapper 
on  the  bottle,  and  wrote  to  one  of  his  victims  as  fol- 
lows: "  I  have  heard  how  you  have  been  victimized 
by  Dr.  So-and-So.  Such  swindles  can  not  be  too 
greatly  deprecated.  I  know,  however,  that  you  are 
suffering  from  what  is  supposed  to  be  an  incurable 
disease;  in  fact,  the  only  thing  that  I  know  of  that 
will  cure  you  is  my  remedy,  which  I  will  be  glad 
to  send  to  you  in  return  for  a  dollar."  Astonishing 
as  it  may  seem,  thousands  of  those  who  had  been  vic- 
tims before,  again  sent  in  their  dollars  to  receive 
exactly  the  same  worthless  remedy. 

Advertising,  and  especially  the  mail-order  variety, 
has  had  to  bear  the  burden  of  disreputable,  fraudulent 


258  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

and  indecent  advertising  more  than  any  other  one  de- 
partment of  publicity.  In  the  case  of  articles  sold 
through  the  stores  no  great  fraud  can  be  practised. 
The  customer  may  read  about  such  things  in  the  news- 
papers and  magazines,  but  he  buys  them  of  his  own 
dealer,  and  sees  the  goods  before  he  buys.  Numerous 
ingenious  schemes  are  made  for  defrauding  credulous 
and  innocent  people  through  the  mail-order  papers, 
and  even  through  the  columns  of  the  most  reputable 
daily  newspapers.  It  is  hard  to  find  a  newspaper  in 
the  country  so  particular  that  at  least  a  few  such 
objectionable  advertisements  are  not  found  in  it, 
though  the  real  field  for  such  announcements  is  the 
mail-order  paper. 

The  most  serious  thing  about  such  advertising  is 
the  helplessness  of  the  government  in  dealing  with 
it.  It  is  often  impossible  to  prosecute  the  advertisers, 
and  the  most  the  post-office  department  can  do  is  to 
issue  what  is  known  as  a  fraud  order.  Such  an  order 
peremptorily  and  without  redress  stops  the  mail  of 
the  advertiser.  This  mail  is  opened  and  the  money 
is  returned  to  the  senders,  and  they  are  advised  that 
the  concern  is  engaged  in  the  business  with  intent  to 
deceive. 

So  clever  are  these  advertisers  that  although  it  is 
patent  to  everybody  that  the  advertising  is  deceptive, 
it  is  impossible  to  point  out  any  actual  deception.  One 
advertiser  offered  to  send  a  complete  set  of  parlor 
furniture  for  the  small  sum  of  $3.50,  saying  that  the 
picture  given  was  an  exact  likeness.  This  proved  true 
to  the  extent  that  the  furniture  was  no  larger  than 
that  in  the  picture.  In  other  words,  it  was  doll's  size 
furniture,  where  the  inquirer  naturally  expected  a 


MAIL-ORDER  ADVERTISING  259 

parlor  set  that  he  could  use  in  his  own  house.  Yet 
there  was  nothing  said  in  the  advertisement  that  was 
not  strictly  true. 

Readers  of  mail-order  advertising  have  sent 
twenty-five  cents  for  a  complete  sewing-machine  and 
received  a  cambric  needle.  They  have  sent  fifty  cents 
for  a  steel  engraving  of  General  Grant  and  received 
a  one-cent  postage-stamp.  It  is  impossible  for  the 
government  to  prove  that  a  needle  is  not  a  complete 
sewing-machine,  or  that  a  one-cent  postage-stamp  is 
not  a  steel  engraving  of  General  Grant.  Still,  the 
people  who  sent  their  money  did  not  get  what  they 
expected. 

The  post-office  is  a  paternal  institution  and  has 
something  of  the  discretionary  power  of  a  police  mag- 
istrate in  deciding  things  arbitrarily.  A  recent  ag- 
gravated case  was  that  of  a  music-dealer  who  adver- 
tised sheet  music — 100  titles  for  ten  cents.  In  return 
for  the  ten  cents  he  sent  100  titles  and  nothing  more. 
In  other  words,  his  customers  paid  ten  cents  for  a 
catalogue,  thinking  they  would  get  the  actual  music. 
A  post-office  inspector  was  put  on  the  trail  of  the  pub- 
lisher, but  it  took  weeks  to  find  him,  as  he  simply 
inquired  for  his  mail  at  the  post-office  and  the  address 
which  appeared  in  his  advertisement  was  the  address 
of  a  branch  postal  station. 

One  department  of  mail-order  advertising  which 
should  possibly  be  mentioned  at  least  is  that  of  the 
correspondence  schools.  The  first  correspondence 
school  was  the  outgrowth  of  a  trade  paper  devoted  to 
mining,  which  began  in  a  small  way  to  give  instruc- 
tion by  correspondence  in  mining  engineering.  This 
was  so  successful  that  the  school  enlarged  its  scope 


260  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

until  its  courses  cover  quite  a  variety  of  topics.  So 
successful  was  the  school  that  the  idea  was  soon  copied 
by  all  kinds  of  institutions  with  every  degree  of 
ability  to  teach.  Most  publications  reaching  young 
people  are  now  filled  with  the  advertising  of  cor- 
respondence schools.  There  are  said  to  be  one  hundred 
thousand  students  of  these  schools  scattered  all  over 
the  United  States.  This  advertising  is  mail-order 
advertising  in  its  strictest  sense. 


CHAPTER   XI 

THE    MATHEMATICS    OF    ADVERTISING 

THE  present-day  tendency  on  the  part  of  expe- 
rienced advertisers  is  to  get, at  the  facts — to  reduce 
the  art  of  advertising  to  a  science — to  develop  what 
may  be  called  the  mathematics  of  advertising. 

Advertising  has  laws  and  figures  as  have  archi- 
tecture, painting,  and  music.  The  profession  of  an 
architect  is  work  that  calls  for  imagination,  taste  and 
other  attributes  of  the  mind,  which  we  call  artistic. 
Yet  the  successful  architect  is  capable  of  calculating 
the  breaking  strain  of  an  iron  beam,  the  weight  and 
durability  of  stone,  wood,  steel  or  tin.  Drawing  has 
perspective,  anatomy  and  even  geometry  behind  it. 
The  statistics  of  advertising  bear  the  same  relation  to 
preparing  a  successful  advertising  campaign  that  the 
mathematics  of  architecture  bear  to  the  designing  of 
a  great  library. 

The  question  with  every  advertiser  is,  does  my 
advertising  pay  and  how  well  does  it  pay?  It  has 
always  been  supposed  that  the  general  advertiser,  the 
man  whose  investment  is  in  pure  publicity,  could  not 
know  other  than  in  the  most  general  way  whether  or 
not  his  advertising  has  been  successful.  The  results 
obtained  by  some  advertisers  who  have  secured  figures 
in  support  of  their  theories  have  proved  this  conviction 
premature. 

The  simplest  method  of  determining  whether  or 

261 


262 


MODERN  ADVERTISING 


IF  YOU  WEAR 

Collar  Buttons 


and     want     the 
kind  that  never 
break,     because 
they   are    made 
from    a     single 
piece    o  f 
metal, 
don't   fail 
to  ask  for 

KREMENTZ 


ONE-PIECE 
Collar  Buttons 


not  advertising  is  read  is  by  offering  something  for 
which  the  reader  may  send.  This  offer  may  take 
the  form  of  a  booklet  about  the  article  advertised, 
or  a  booklet  containing  helpful  matter  in  addition 

to  advertising  matter 
— recipes  for  prepar- 
ing foods  or  drinks, 
special  instructions 
for  decorating  a 
home,  or  something 
of  that  kind.  The 
nature  of  the  book  is 
generally  suggested 
by  the  article  adver- 
tised. An  advertiser 
making,  say,  a  min- 
eral water,  will  send 
out  a  book  of  recipes 

KREMENTZ  &  co.    jffifc        for  mixed  drinks  in 
69  chestnut  street, BH       which     the     mineral 

NEWARK,  N.  J.  \j^M0r 

THE  CRITIC  water  is  used.    There 

is  a  wide  range  in 
the  use  of  booklets  of 
this  kind,  because  one 
manufacturer  making  mixers,  shakers  and  spoons  for 
mixing  drinks,  sends  out  a  very  handsome  book  of 
recipes  for  the  drinks  themselves. 

An  advertiser  making  an  offer  of  this  kind  will 
get  a  certain  number  of  replies,  a  small  percentage  of 
the  number  of  people  actually  reading  the  advertising. 
If  the  article  is  sold  through  the  stores,  many  people 
will  buy  that  article  at  the  stores.  A  certain  percent- 
age will  send  for  the  booklet  or  whatever  is  offered. 


rolled  plate,  sterling  and  gold.     The   name 
Krementz  and   the   quality 


Made 

stamped   on    the   back 

of  every  button.  There's  more  gold  in  our  plated 
button  than  in  any  other  make.  Write  for  booklet, 
"  The  Story  of  a  Collar  Button." 


AN  INDUCEMENT  TO  WRITE  IS  OF- 
FERED. THE  STREET  ADDRESS  IS 
PROBABLY  A  KEY. 


THE  MATHEMATICS  OF  ADVERTISING         263 

Another  way  to  stimulate  the  use  of  an  article  is 
to  offer  something  desirable  in  return  for  a  certain 
number  of  box  fronts,  labels  or  metal  caps  to  be  taken 
from  the  package,  bottle  or  jar.  These  are  evidence 
of  the  consumption,  or  at  least  of  the  purchase,  of  a 
certain  number  of  packages  of  the  articles  advertised. 

The  question   of  whether   or  not  to  charge  for 
the  article  sent  is  one  which  is  treated  differently  by 
different  advertisers.     Some  advertisers  send  it  abso- 
lutely free.     Others  ask  for  the  postage.     Still  others 
charge  a  small  price,  sometimes  enough  to  cover  the 
cost  of  producing  the  book-          ..  , 
let  or  article.   This  is  done         MACBETH,  OH 
not  so  much  to  reimburse  |  i    • 

themselves  for  the  outlay     &   13,  HI  p-C  111111- 
as  on  the  belief  that  people  .        c  1-  a  v  c 

think  more  of  something        l  C  /  >       >  L  *  J   ' 
for  which  they  have  paid 
than  they  do  of  something 

that      iS      given       free.  An-  My  Index  tellswha,  chimney  fit,  your  lamp.    Uyo, 

.  use  that  chimney,  you  get  perhaps  twice  as  much  light, 

other  reason  they  charge     ani^ft^7mgwato.earofchiinniy"raoney' 

a  small  sum  for  a  booklet 

or  other  advertising  is  that     AN  UNUS^AL  NAME  is  GIVEN 

TO   THE    BOOKLET.     NO  KEY. 

it    weeds    out    from    the 

day's   mail   all  curiosity   seekers.      Many   people  in 

this  country  write  for  anything  that  is  offered  free, 

whether  they  can  use  it  or  not.     Such  replies  are  one 

of  the  great  drawbacks  to  offering  something  in  the 

advertising. 

There  is  another  way  of  charging  for  a  book- 
let or  other  thing  that  is  offered.  The  inquirer  is 
asked  to  do  something.  The  most  ordinary  form  of 
request  is  that  the  writer  shall  send  in  the  name  of 


264  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

her  dealer  in  the  line  of  the  article  advertised.  As 
explained  in  another  chapter,  the  reason  for  doing  this 
is  to  bring  pressure  to  bear' upon  that  dealer  to  place 
the  goods  in  stock.  Sometimes  the  inquirer  is  asked 
to  send  the  names  of  several  friends  to  whom  adver- 
tising literature  may  be  sent. 

All  these  things  are  efforts  on  the  part  of  various 
advertisers  to  ascertain  to  some  extent  whether  their 
advertising  is  being  read  or  not. 

Next  to  the  desire  for  knowledge  of  this  sort,  the 
advertiser  likes  to  know  which  particular  mediums 


LibbysF,a,or*~ — _ 


AN  ADVERTISEMENT  IN  WHICH   A   BOOK   OF   RECIPES   IS  OFFERED. 
THIS   ADVERTISEMENT  HAS   NO   KEY. 

pull  best.  To  accomplish  this  the  advertising  is 
"  keyed."  Some  form  of  address  is  used  which  can 
be  varied  in  each  magazine.  The  inquirer  reading 
the  advertisement  in  a  given  magazine  copies  the  ad- 
dress as  it  appears  there.  The  replies  are  then  sorted 
in  the  office  of  the  advertiser  according  to  the 
address. 

There  are  a  great  many  ways  of  keying  advertise- 
ments. All  are  good,  but  none  is  perfect.  Variations 
of  street  numbers  are  possible  where  an  advertiser  is 
located  in  a  small  town,  or  possesses  a  very  large  plant. 


For  fun  Monition  tin  out  this  coupon  of  write 
The  Equitable  Life  Aunranve  Society  of  the  Unltod  8t*tea.  12O  Brnadwa, 

Pleuc  Knd  at  inloimilion  rctitdinr  >  Continuoul  Initilmcnl  Endowment  lot  I 


Fork.       Dipt.  Ho.  ( 


A   COUPON   IN   WHICH   THE    AGE    OF   THE    INQUIRER   IS  AMONG 
THE   INFORMATION   DESIRED. 


COUPON  KEYED   FOR   PUBLICATION. 


For  Free  Books  and  Foldtn,  kindly  Fill  Out  tbit  Coupon  and  mail  tt-day  to 
F.  A.  MILLER,  G.  P.  A.,  The  Railway  Exchange,  Chicago 


Street  Addnst_ 
City 


Probable  Destination^ 


COUPON  ACROSS  BOTTOM  OF  PAGE. 

FORMS  OF  COUPONS. 


266  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

For  instance,  a  building  occupying  an  entire  block 
is  entitled  to,  say,  fifty  street  numbers.  Each  mag- 
azine will  be  assigned  a  street  number,  but  all  mail 
will  be  delivered  to  the  same  office.  The  address  shows 
which  magazine  inspired  the  inquiry.  An  advertiser 
may  give  fictitious  addresses,  using  different  street 
names,  but  leaving  orders  at  his  post-office  that  all 
mail  shall  be  put  in  a  certain  box.  Department  letters 
and  numbers  are  sometimes  used,  as  "  Department 
29,"  or  "  Ask  for  booklet  B."  Also  a  booklet  will  be 
given  a  different  name  in  each  advertisement,  and  the 
title  by  which  the  booklet  is  asked  for  is  a  clue,  but 
not  always  a  sure  one.  Some  people  simply  say, 
"  Send  us  your  booklet,"  and  the  key  is  lost.  Differ- 
ent spellings  of  the  firm  name  are  sometimes  used, 
but  all  keys  go  wrong  at  times.  Every  advertiser 
receives  a  certain  percentage  of  inquiries  which  can 
not  be  classified,  and  which  must  be,  therefore,  divided 
proportionately  among  the  different  magazines. 

A  variation  of  the  "  key  "  in  advertising  is  the 
coupon,  the  use  of  which  has  grown  to  large  propor- 
tions in  the  pages  of  the  magazines  and  also  in  the 
newspapers.  This  coupon,  which  was  originally  in- 
vented by  Ralph  Tilton,  at  that  time  advertising  man- 
ager for  The  Century  Dictionary  and  Encyclopedia, 
consists  of  a  corner  of  the  advertisement  which  can 
be  detached  by  a  stroke  of  the  shears,  and  which  offers 
a  form  of  reply  to  be  filled  out  and  mailed  to  the  ad- 
vertiser. Coupons  have  developed  -rapidly  in  adver- 
tising, but  they  have  departed  so  far  from  the  original 
idea  that  they  are  now  found  not  only  at  the  inside 
corners  of  the  page,  but  also  in  the  centers  of  pages 
and  other  places  where  they  have  to  be  cut  out  with 


Plca"Cs°nd  me '.'.'.El  Provoit 

(«hape)  cijar«.     Lijht 

Medium Dark 


KEYED  FOR  MONTH  AND 
PUBLICATION. 


FORMS  OF  COUPONS. 


268  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

considerable  trouble.  This  raises  the  question  as  to 
whether  the  coupon  is  valuable  enough  to  justify  the 
space  it  occupies.  One  prominent  advertiser  insists 
that  the  coupon  is  a  direct  detriment  inasmuch  as  his 
customers  would  write  detailed  letters  of  important 
information  if  there  were  no  coupon,  and  that  they 
confine  themselves  to  the  facts  asked  for  by  the  coupon 
otherwise.  This  consideration  would  be  more  impor- 
tant to  some  advertisers  than  to  others. 

Large  general  advertisers  who  have  satisfied  them- 
selves that  certain  publications  are  good  mediums  for 
them,  abandon  all  keys,  continue  to  place  a  certain 
amount  of  advertising  in  the  magazines  they  have 
tested,  and  trust  to  the  volume  of  business  from  the 
entire  country  to  prove  to  them  that  their  advertising 
as  a  whole  is  right.  Their  own  experience,  which 
has  cost  them  a  good  deal  of  money,  is  not  available 
to  new  advertisers. 

Advertisers  whose  advertising  brings  direct  re- 
turns keep  very  accurate  records  of  their  expenditure 
as  to  the  cost  of  securing  an  inquiry  and  the  cost  of 
securing  an  order.  Such  advertisers  are  able  to  key 
their  advertising  not  only  by  publications  but  by 
months.  They  know,  for  instance,  not  only  that  such 
and  such  a  reply  was  inspired  by  The  Outlook,  but 
also  that  it  was  inspired  by  the  advertisement  in  the 
November  number.  They  can  separate  the  November 
replies  from  the  December  replies.  These  advertisers 
know  in  dollars  and  cents  how  much  it  costs  to  get 
a  given  inquiry  and  what  advertisement  brought  it. 
The  exact  cost  of  the  inquiry  is  the  cost  of  the  entire 
advertising  space  that  month  divided  by  the  number 
of  inquiries  received.  The  cost  of  an  inquiry,  how- 


JOHN  \*$ 

BROADWAY,  FOURTH  AVENUE 

NINTH  fc  TENTH  STREETS. 


Oct.  14,  1904. 

To  the  Public:  -- 

The  latest  edition  of  The  Century  Dictionary  &  Cyclo- 
pedia &  Atlas,  which  is  now  coming  from  the  DeVinne  Press,  con 
pletes  our  arrangement  with  the  publishers  under  which  we  havo 
been  able  to  sell  this  great  work  at  half-price. 

As  soon  as  this  edition  is  exhausted  our  half-price 
offer  will  no.  longer  be  in  force,  and  the  distribution  will  be 
resumed  by  the  publishers. 

This  notice  is  now  going  to  all  with  whom  we  have  had 
correspondence  about  The  Century,  and,  as  a  result,  the  sets  are 
being  taken  rapidly. 

This  important  question  confronts  you  and  demands  im- 
mediate attention: 

Shall  'I  secure  The  Century  now,  save  half  the  publish- 
ers' price,  have  the  use  of  the  complete  work  while  making  small 
monthly  payments;  or.  later,  pay  double  the  Wanamaker  price 
and  continue  to  get  along  without  this  great  help  in  the 
meantime  . 

Don'  t-  -if  money  and  'advancement  mean  anything  to  you-- 
dismisB  this  question  with  the  idea  that  you  will  purchase  as 
conveniently  after  whil-e.   The  publishers  believe  the  work  is 
now  so  well  established  as  The  Great  American  Work  of  Reference 
that  people  must  have  it  and  will  readily  pay  the  regular 
price.   There  will,  therefore,  be  no  "after  while"  so  far 
as  the  Wanamaker  half-.price,  little-payment  sale  is  con- 
cerned.  Consider  the  question  while  the  half-price 
prevails.      Respectfully, 


name  and  address  into  thb  corner  coupon,  designating   (by  number)  that  one  of  the  fol- 
lowing profusely  illustrated  booklets  which  most  Interests  you     Hall  the  coupon 
the  booklet  will  be  sent  free.    Tonr  request  will  in  no  way  obligate  yon  either 


IMPORTANT.-Kach  booklet  contain,  a  beintlfnllr  illustrated 
article  on  the  value  of  The  Century  to  The  Woman  and  In  The  Home. 
Women  should,  therefore,  select  the  booklet  most  likely  to  interest      A 


A    PAGE   MAGAZINE   ADVERTISEMENT  SHOWING    COUPON   ATTACHED 


270  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

ever,  is  not  even  in  ratio  to  the  cost  of  making  a  sale. 
An  inquiry  when  it  has  been  received  is  followed  up 
with  printed  matter,  or  by  personal  solicitation,  or 
by  whatever  other  method  the  advertiser  uses,  until 
the  sale  is  made.  Then  the  cost  of  making  the  sale 
is  added  to  the  cost  of  getting  the  inquiry,  which 
makes  the  total  cost  of  the  sale. 

It  quite  frequently  happens  that  the  publication 
which  is  most  fruitful  in  replies  is  most  barren  in 
orders.  Therefore,  a  publication  at  a  high  price  bring- 
ing in  comparatively  few  replies  may  in  the  end  prove 
more  profitable  than  a  publication  at  a  lower  price 
bringing  in  a  large  number  of  inquiries.  All  these 
things  the  advertiser  patiently  studies,  compares  and 
classifies,  and  upon  these  results  he  bases  his  list  of 
mediums. 

An  effort  is  sometimes  made  by  general  advertisers 
and  others  interested  in  advertising  to  find  out  how 
much  impression  advertising  makes.  Tests  are  ar- 
ranged to  show  the  advertised  articles  which  are 
remembered  first  by  a  selected  number  of  people.  The 
characteristic  symbol  or  trade-mark  of  a  number  of 
advertisements  is  cut  out  and  the  whole  lot  pasted  on 
the  wall.  A  number  of  people  are  asked  to  identify 
the  articles  advertised  by  these  marks  to  show  how 
much  of  an  impression  each  trade-mark  has  made. 
Such  tests  are  by  no  means  proof  conclusive,  but  they 
are  interesting  as  straws  to  show  which  way  the  wind 
blows. 

The  "  Jim  Dumps  and  Sunny  Jim  "  advertising 
of  the  Force  Food  Company  was  successful,  and  one 
of  the  reasons  for  its  success  may  not  have  occurred 
to  a  great  many  people,  even  advertising  people. 


THE  MATHEMATICS  OF  ADVERTISING         271 


There  was  a  time  when  no  patent-medicine  adver- 
tising, and,  in  fact,  almost  no  advertising  of  any  kind 
was  complete  without  "  before-taking  "  and  "  after- 
taking  "  pictures.  Over  and  over  again  was  this  used 
in  advertising,  until  it  became  almost  a  fundamental 
principle.  The  public  liked  to  see  instances  illus- 
trated this  way.  It  saw  the  man  a  physical  wreck 


Jim  Dumps'  half-sister,  pale  and  slight, 

Had  very  little  appetite. 

She  said  :   "Such  dainty-looking  food 
Will  please  the  most  capricious  mood. 

So  crisp,  so  light-it  takes  my  whim  ! " 

"  It  takes  with  all,"  quoth  "  Sunny  Jim." 


orce 


The  Rcadj-to-S«rve  Cered 


a  different  food 

for  indifferent  appetites. 


Swwt.  criip  fl.K.t 

of  wh.»t  and  mill 


GEORGE , 


THE    ORIGINAL   FORM    OF  THE    "  SUNNY   JIM"    ADVERTISING. 

"before  he  had  taken  a  bottle  of  the  preparation,  and 
it  saw  him  completely  restored  afterward.  It  saw 
the  housewife  who  did  or  did  not  use  a  soap  or  a 
washing-powder  or  any  other  domestic  article  or 
utensil  and  the  transformation  afterward. 

The   Jerry   McCauley   Mission   down   along  the 
shore,  under  the  big  bridge  in  New  York  City,  fol- 
lows a  similar  plan.     When  a  man  comes  into  the 
19 


"The  best  food  is  the  best  doc- 
tor,"—the  doctor  himself  will  tell 
you  so. 

"FORCE"  is  appropriate  as 
soon  as  a  few  good  teeth  appear,— 
and  it  starts  right  in  the  first  day 
to  make  quick,  elastic  muscle  and 
sturdy,  solid  bone. 


Wheat  Is  the  Ideal  grain. 

"FORCE"  is  the  ideal  f,rm  of  wheat,-honest,  wholesome,  entire 
vbeat,  malted  with  barley,  thoroughly  cooked  and  crispily  flaked. 

It  contains  no  glucose,  nor  any  other  deleterious  sweetening  substance. 


STYLE   ADOPTED   THE   SECOND   YEAR. 


THE  MATHEMATICS  OF  ADVERTISING         273 


mission  and  decides  to  try  to 
lead  a  better  life,  his  photo- 
graph is  taken.  Then,  pro- 
vided the  rescued  one  succeeds 
in  leading  a  respectable  life, 
his  picture  is  taken  again  at 
the  end  of  six  months  or  a 
year  and  put  beside  the  first 
one.  The  contrast  is  startling. 
A  complete  set  of  such  pic- 
tures is  a  more  impressive  ob- 
ject lesson  for  other  wayfar- 
ers. All  of  this  appeals  to  a 
certain  instinct  in  human 
nature  and,  therefore,  is  good 
advertising. 

So  in  the  same  way  the 
continued  series  of  Jim 
Dumps  and  Sunny  Jim,  the 
before-and-after  idea  of  Force, 
was  one  of  its  strong  points. 
This  may  have  been  uncon- 
scious, but  it  was  nevertheless 
effective.  Undoubtedly  the 
reason  the  idea  appealed  to 
the  Force  Food  people  was 
because  they  recognized,  with- 
out defining  it,  that  satisfac- 
tion offered  by  a  before-and- 
after  idea. 

In  analyzing  advertising 
a  distinction  should  be  made 
between  publicity  for  a  sym- 


"  Force-thoughts 


XVIII. 

DO  you  know  that  you  get 
a  new  skin  every  month 
or  six  weeks  —  from  four 
to  twelve  new  skins  for  every 
gown  or  new  suit  of  clothes 
you  buy? 

Do  you  know  that  your  finger- 
nails are  completely  renewed 
every  six  months,  and  your  toe- 
nails  once  a  year,  and  that  your 
eyelashes  last  about  a  hun- 
dred dayu? 

C.I  grew  up  with  the  popular 
notion  that  one's  body  was  com- 
pletely renewed  every  seven 
years;  in  reality,  the  change 
takes  place  within  about  thirty 
months  ;  and  the  only  part  that 
undergoes  but  little  transfor- 
mation is  the  enamel  of  your 
teeth.. 

No  wonder,  then,  that  the 
food  you  eat  is  the  all-important 
thing.  From  it  was  made  all 
you  are  to-day  —  and  to-mor- 
row's breakfast  has  a  mighty 
big  bearing  on  the  way  you'll 
decide  an  important  matter  two 
months  from  now  ! 
C.And  you  know  it's  not  the 
amount  of  nutriment  in  the 
food  but  the  amount  that  is 
available  that  counts.  '  'FoKCK" 
is  a  food  containing  the  high- 
est percentage  of  nutriment  so 
far  as  materials  are  concerned, 
and  the  scientific  cooking  pro- 
cess renders  all  this  nutriment 
ready  for  immediate  trans- 
formation into  brain  and  muscle. 

It's  because  it  is  so  easily  di- 
gested that  it  helps  us  to 

Be  Sunny. 

Youra  truly, 


STYLE   USED   THE  THIRD 
YEAR. 


274  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

bol  and  publicity  for  the  article  advertised.  For  in- 
stance, in  the  case  of  Force  and  "  Sunny  Jim,"  it  is 
believed  by  a  good  many  that  the  advertising  exploited 
"  Sunny  Jim  "  at  the  expense  of  Force ;  that  a  large 
number  of  people  recall  "  Sunny  Jim,"  but  that  a  dis- 
proportionately small  number  of  people  recall  that 
"  Sunny  Jim  "  was  associated  with  Force.  In  other 
words,  the  attempt  to  make  a  symbol  of  "  Sunny 
Jim  "  lessened  the  advertising  for  the  article  which 
was  supposed  to  be  exploited  by  the  symbol. 

If  advertising  ever  becomes  an  exact  science,  the 
first  thing  the  scientist  will  have  to  do  will  be  to 
determine  the  respective  merits  of  advertising  that 
explains  and  advertising  that  exclaims. 

In  a  given  copy  of  a  newspaper  there  are  two 
advertisements  of  breakfast  foods.  One  of  these 
makes  a  number  of  explicit  statements.  There  is  no 
illustration,  no  design,  no  eye-catcher — simply  plain 
type  and  explicit  statements.  On  an  opposite  page 
facing  it  is  an  advertisement  which  to  many  people, 
and  especially  to  advertising  people,  will  seem  infi- 
nitely better.  This  advertisement  doesn't  in  any  part 
of  it  say  one  single  thing  about  the  breakfast  food 
advertised.  It  consists  of  a  jingle  and  the  name  of 
the  food.  The  jingle,  while  clever  and  metrical,  and 
while  it  mentions  the  name  of  the  food,  says  nothing 
about  it  that  would,  from  an  ordinary  point  of  view, 
induce  people  to  buy  it. 

Now,  which  of  these  is  the  better?  The  latter 
is  one  of  a  series  all  connected  by  the  same  idea. 
It  has  been  criticised  by  various  experts  of  more 
or  less  experience,  and  their  criticisms  range  from 
calling  it  distinctly  good  down  to  calling  it  distinctly 


THE  MATHEMATICS  OF  ADVERTISING         275 

bad.  At  least  five  large  advertising  campaigns  have 
been  carried  on  this  last  year  based  upon  an  idea  like 
this — an  idea  which  could  be  repeated  in  each  adver- 
tisement with  different  variations,  more  or  less  con- 
nected with  a  catchphrase  or  with  a  jingle. 

This  sort  of  thing  gets  a  great  deal  of  publicity, 
but  does  publicity  in  itself  sell  goods  ?  When  you 
are  told  to  "  say  Zu  Zu  to  the  grocer  man/'  or  that 
a  food  produces  "  The  Smile  That  Won't  Come  Off," 
or  that  "  Jim  Dumps  "  ate  Force  and  became  "  Sunny 
Jim,"  does  that  advertise  anything  to  you  ?  If  it  isn't 
good  advertising,  why  are  big  appropriations  spent 
upon  such  ideas  ?  If  it  is  good  advertising,  why  do 
so  many  big,  successful  advertisers  fight  shy  of  it  ? 

The  real  solution  is  this :  That  a  large  advertising 
appropriation  will  advertise  anything  to  some  extent ; 
that  no  matter  how  poor  the  copy,  if  it  is  put  in  enough 
places,  and  the  name  of  the  goods  made  strong  enough, 
it  is  bound  to  sell  these  goods.  Just  how  much  it  will 
sell  depends  upon  just  how  good  or  bad  the  copy  is — 
that  is,  how  explicit  or  convincing  it  is.  It  depends 
upon  the  amount  of  competition  of  similar  articles. 
It  depends  upon  the  attitude  of  the  trade.  It  depends 
upon  a  host  of  other  considerations. 

An  idea  which  is  based  upon  making  a  name  or 
catchphrase  a  household  word  will  never  succeed 
imless  the  advertising  appropriation  is  a  large  one. 
There  is  a  certain  invisible  line  which  no  one  has  yet 
been  able  to  find.  To  stop  this  side  of  it  means 
failure.  On  the  other  side  of  it  is  success  out  of 
proportion  to  the  amount  of  money  spent.  It  is  as 
if  some  one  said  that  to  spend  one  hundred  thousand 
dollars  in  the  United  States  upon  one  idea  would  fail 


276  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

to  make  your  idea  a  popular  one,  but  that  by  spending 
one  hundred  thousand  and  one  dollars  you  could  make 
your  name,  or  your  jingle,  or  your  idea  or  your  char- 
acter a  part  of  the  vocabulary  of  the  country  and  get 
two  or  three  hundred  thousand  dollars'  worth  of  adver- 
tising additional  which  -you  did  not  get  before.  Just 
the  particular  point  at  which  the  tide  turns  and  the 
public  takes  up  your  work  and  carries  it  on  for  you, 
no  one  has  been  able  to  determine. 

Of  course,  this  happens  in  other  things  besides 
advertising.  It  is  the  real  reason  for  the  growth  and 
distribution  of  slang.  It  is  at  the  bottom  of  the 
furore  that  certain  books  cause. 

Certain  books,  for  no  reason  that  any  publisher 
or  writer  can  determine,  will  be  taken  up,  like  David 
Harum,  and  given  the  widest  distribution  until  their 
name  is  familiar  to  every  one,  and  even  to  non-liter- 
ary people.  Other  books  equally  good  along  the  same 
line  fall  dead.  Just  what  it  is  that  induces  the  public 
to  take  up  the  publisher's  cause  and  advertise  a  book, 
no  one  knows. 

It  is  always  something  which  can  become  a  craze, 
as  it  were,  like  ping-pong,  tiddledywinks,  or  the 
"  Bonnie  Brier  Bush,"  or  the  interest  in  athletics. 
No  one  knows  why  these  things  sweep  over  the  coun- 
try, yet  every  one  is  more  or  less  affected  by  them. 
It  may  be  some  sort  of  a  germ  or  microbe  (or  it  is 
something  distinct  in  fashion).  Fashion  spreads  all 
over  the  country  from  certain  large  centers. 

A  year  or  two  after  the  modish  people  in  Paris, 
London  and  New  York  decided  that  a  straight  front 
effect  was  desirable,  women  even  in  the  outskirts  of 
Hickory  Creek  at  least  knew  that  a  straight  front  was 


THE  MATHEMATICS  OF  ADVERTISING         277 

desirable,  whether  they  were  able  to  dress  that  way  or 
not.  But  a  fashion  is  different  from  a  craze.  Some 
crazes  are  fashions,  but  not  all  fashions  are  crazes. 

That  indefinable  something  which  makes  a  hit  in 
advertising,  or  in  anything  else,  has  not  been  fully 
classified,  but  it  has  something  to  do  with  repetition, 
and  that  is  why  so  many  ideas  are  successful  simply 
and  solely  on  account  of  the  advertising  appro- 
priation behind  them  and ,  sometimes  in  spite  of 
the  idea. 

Every  one  has  attended  the  sort  of  a  show  in  which 
a  certain  character  has  what  is  technically  known  as 
a  "  gag."  Take  an  example  in  a  recent  revival.  You 
will  remember  how  Little  Lord  Fauntleroy  gets  off 
that  "  I'll  be  jiggered."  In  the  first  act  it  doesn't 
awaken  a  ripple.  In  the  second  act  it  excites  a  respect- 
able amount  of  applause.  In  the  latter  part  of  the 
play  it  only  needs  to  be  mentioned  to  provoke  a  roar 
of  laughter.  The  audience  has  been  slowly  educated 
to  the  phrase  as  a  slang  one.  It  has  become  a  part  of 
their  vocabulary  for  the  time  being — for  the  evening, 
that  is. 

In  the  same  way  a  singer  will  start  a  topical  song 
in  which  the  chorus  has  a  certain  phrase.  As  each 
verse  ends  he  brings  in  this  phrase  with  a  new  signi- 
ficance. Each  time  it  seems  funnier  than  it  really  is. 
This  is  the  effect  upon  the  public  on  a  larger  scale  of 
such  expressions  as  "  The  Smile  That  Won't  Come 
Off,"  or  "  Sunny  Jim,"  or  "  Say  Zu  Zu,"  or  "  Uneeda 
Biscuit." 

The  man  who  can  decide  just  what  ideas  of  this 
kind  are  good,  provided  they  are  sufficiently  adver- 
tised, has  discovered  one  of  the  secrets  of  advertising, 


278  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

and  undoubtedly  one  of  the  secrets  of  human  nature 
as  it  is  found  in  the  United  States. 

In  connection  with  this  matter  should  be  men- 
tioned the  work  of  Walter  Dill  Scott  of  North- 
western University.  Professor  Scott  used  laboratory 
methods  to  determine,  if  possible,  whether  the  prin- 
ciples of  psychology  could  be  applied  to  advertising. 
It  was  his  intention  to  learn  the  principles  by  actual 
experiment,  and  then  apply  them  to  the  preparation 
of  advertising.  Writing  for  the  Atlantic  Monthly, 
Professor  Scott  gives  the  following  description  of  his 
own  work : 

"  In  a  former  age  the  seller,  the  buyer,  and  the  commodity 
were  brought  together.  The  seller  described  and  exhibited 
his  wares.  The  buyer  saw  the  goods,  heard  of  them,  tasted 
them,  smelt  them,  felt  and  lifted  them.  He  tested  them  by 
means  of  every  sense  organ  to  which  they  could  appeal.  In 
this  way  the  buyer  became  acquainted  with  the  goods.  His 
perception  of  them  was  as  complete  as  it  could  be  made. 
In  these  latter  days  the  market-place  has  given  way  to 
the  office.  The  consequent  separation  of  buyer,  seller  and 
commodity  made  the  commercial  traveler  with  his  sample- 
case  seem  a  necessity.  But,  with  the  growing  volume  of 
business,  and  with  the  increased  need  for  more  economical 
forms  of  transacting  business,  the  printed  page,  as  a  form  of 
advertisement,  has  superseded  the  market-place,  arid  is,  in 
many  cases,  displacing  the  commercial  traveler.  In  this 
transition  from  the  market-place  and  the  commercial  traveler 
to  the  printed  page,  the  advertiser  must  be  on  his  guard  to 
preserve  as  many  as  possible  of  the  good  features  of  the 
older  institutions.  In  the  two  older  forms  of  barter  all  the 
senses  of  the  purchaser  were  appealed  to,  if  possible,  and  in 
addition  to  this  the  word  of  mouth  of  the  seller  was  added 
to  increase  the  impressions,  and  to  call  special  attention  to 
the  strong  features  of  the  commodity.  In  the  printed  page 


THE  MATHEMATICS   OF  ADVERTISING         279 

the  word  of  mouth  is  the  only  feature  which  is  of  necessity 
entirely  absent.  Indeed,  the  printed  page  can  not  appeal 
directly  to  any  of  the  senses  except  the  eye,  but  the  argu- 
ment may  be  of  such  a  nature  that  the  reader's  senses  are 
appealed  to  indirectly  through  his  imagination. 

"The  function  of  our  nervous  system  is  to  make  us  aware 
of  the  sights,  sounds,  feelings,  tastes,  etc.,  of  the  objects  in 
our  environment,  and  the  more  sensations  we  receive  from 
an  object  the  better  we  know  it.  The  nervous  system  which . 
does  not  respond  to  sound  or  to  any  other  of  the  sensible 
qualities  is  a  defective  nervous  system.  Advertisements  are 
sometimes  spoken  of  as  the  nervous  system  of  the  business 
world.  That  advertisement  of  musical  instruments  which 
contains  nothing  to  awaken  images  of  sound  is  a  defective 
advertisement.  That  advertisement  of  foods  which  contains 
nothing  to  awaken  images  of  taste  is  a  defective  advertise- 
ment. As  our  nervous  system  is  constructed  to  give  us  all 
the  possible  sensations  from  objects,  so  the  advertisement 
which  is  comparable  to  the  nervous  system  must  awaken  in 
the  reader  ^s  many  different  kinds  of  images  as  the  object 
itself  can  excite. 

"  The  day  of  reckless,  sporadic,  haphazard  advertising  is 
rapidly  coming  to  an  end  so  far  as  magazine  advertising  is 
concerned.  Although  the  number  of  pages  devoted  to  adver- 
tising in  our  best  magazines  has  increased  during  these  last 
ten  years,  the  number  of  firms  advertising  in  these  same  maga- 
zines has  decreased.  The  struggle  has  been  too  fierce  for  any 
but  the  strongest.  The  inefficient  advertisers  are  gradually 
being  eliminated,  and  the  survival  of  the  fittest  seems  to  be 
a  law  of  advertising  as  it  is  of  everything  else  that  develops. 

"The  leaders  of  the  profession  feel  that  their  work  has 
grown  till  it  is  beyond  their  control  and  comprehension. 
They  have  been  successful,  and  hardly  know  how  it  has  all 
come  about.  The  men  who  have  been  the  most  successful 
are  often  the  ones  who  feel  most  deeply  their  inability  to 
meet  new  emergencies.  They  believe  that  there  should  be 
some  underlying  principles  which  could  help  them  in  analyz- 
ing what  they  have  already  accomplished,  and  assist  them 


280  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

in  their  further  efforts.  As  their  entire  object  is  to  produce 
certain  effects  on  the  minds  of  possible  customers,  it  is  not 
strange  that  they  have  turned  to  psychology  in  search  of 
such  principles.  Traditionally  the  practical  business  man 
scouts  at  theory.  Psychology,  to  the  popular  mind,  is 
something  devoid  of  all  practical  application,  related  to 
metaphysics,  and  suited  only  to  the  recluse  and  hermit.  If 
ever  there  was  ground  to  expect  sarcastic  and  pessimistic 
prophecies  from  the  hard-headed  business  man,  it  was  when 
it  was  proposed  to  establish  advertising  on  a  theoretical 
basis  deduced  from  psychology.  Such  adverse  criticism  has, 
however,  been  the  exception.  The  American  business  man 
is  not  afraid  of  theories.  He  wants  them,  and  the  more  the 
better. 

"The  best  thought  of  the  advertising  world  finds  expres- 
sion in  the  advertising  journals  and  in  the  addresses  delivered 
by  various  experts  at  gatherings  of  professional  advertisers. 
In  1895  in  one  of  the  leading  advertising  journals  appeared 
the  following  editorial : 

'"  Probably  when  we  are  a  little  more  enlightened,  the 
advertisement  writer,  like  the  teacher,  will  study  psychology. 
For,  however  diverse  their  occupations  may  at  first  sight 
appear,  the  advertisement  writer  and  the  teacher  have  one 
great  object  in  common — to  influence  the  human  mind.  The 
teacher  has  a  scientific  foundation  for  his  work  in  that  direc- 
tion, but  the  advertisement  writer  is  really  also  a  psychologist. 
Human  nature  is  a  great  factor  in  advertising  success ;  and 
he  who  writes  advertisements  without  reference  to  it  is  apt 
to  find  that  he  has  reckoned  without  his  host/ 

"The  man  who  penned  this  editorial  was  a  practical 
advertiser,  but  he  admitted  of  no  incongruity  between  the 
practical  and  the  theoretical. 

"In  Publicity  for  March,  1901,  appeared  a  leading  article 
on  psychology  and  advertising.  The  following  is  a  quotation 
from  it : 


THE  MATHEMATICS  OF  ADVERTISING         281 

"'The  time  is  not  far  away  when  the  advertising  writer 
will  find  out  the  inestimable  benefits  of  a  knowledge  of 
psychology.  The  preparation  of  copy  has  usually  followed 
the  instincts  rather  than  the  analytical  functions.  An  ad- 
vertisement has  been  written  to  describe  the  articles  which 
it  was  wished  to  place  before  the  reader ;  a  bit  of  cleverness, 
an  attractive  cut,  or  some  other  catchy  device  has  been  used, 
with  the  hope  that  the  hit  or  miss  ratio  could  be  made  as 
favorable  as  possible.  But  the  future  must  needs  be  full  of 
better  methods  than  these  to  make  advertising  advance  with 
the  same  rapidity  as  it  has  during  the  latter  part  of  the  last 
century.  And  this  will  come  through  a  closer  knowledge  of 
the  psychological  composition  of  the  mind.  The  so-called 
"students  of  human  nature"  will  then  be  called  successful 
psychologists,  and  the  successful  advertisers  will  be  likewise 
termed  psychological  advertisers.  The  mere  mention  of 
psychological  terms,  habit,  self,  conception,  discrimination, 
association,  memory,  imagination,  and  perception,  reason, 
emotion,  instinct  and  will,  should  create  a  flood  of  new 
thought  that  should  appeal  to  every  advanced  consumer  of 
advertising  space/ 

"In  an  address  before  the  Agate  Club  of  Chicago,  the 
speaker  said : 

"'As  advertisers,  all  your  efforts  have  been  to  produce 
certain  effects  on  the  minds  of  possible  customers.  Psy- 
chology is,  broadly  speaking,  the  science  of  the  mind.  Art 
is  the  doing  and  science  is  the  understanding  how  to  do,  or 
the  explanation  of  what  has  been  done.  If  we  are  able  to 
find  and  to  express  the  psychological  laws  upon  which  the 
art  of  advertising  is  based,  we  shall  have  made  a  distinct 
advance,  for  we  shall  have  added  the  science  to  the  art  of 
advertising/ 

"In  a  recent  address  before  the  Atlas  Club  of  Chicago, 
the  speaker  said : 

" '  In  passing  to  the  psychological  aspect  of  our  subject, 
advertising  might  properly  be  defined  as  the  art  of  deter- 


282  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

mining  the  will  of  possible  customers.  .  .  .  Our  acts 
are  the  resultants  of  our  motives,  and  it  is  your  function  in 
commercial  life  to  create  the  motives  that  will  effect  the 
sale  of  the  producer's  wares/ 

"In  response  to  this  felt  need  on  the  part  of  the  adver- 
tiser, several  students  of  psychology  have  tried  to  select 
those  principles  of  psychology  which  might  be  of  benefit  to 
the  advertising,  and  to  present  them  to  the  advertising 
world  through  pamphlets/  magazine  articles,2  public  ad- 
dresses,3 and,  in  one  case  at  least,  by  means  of  a  book.4 

"The  method  employed  by  the  psychologist  in  attempting 
to  give  advertising  a  theoretical  basis  has  been  quite  uniform. 
He  has  first  analyzed  the  human  mind  into  its  various  activi- 
ties, then  analyzed  advertisements  to  discover  what  there  is 
in  them  that  may  or  may  not  awaken  the  activity  desired. 

"This  method  can  best  be  understood  from  an  example. 
For  an  illustration  we  shall  consider  Mental  Imagery  as  under- 
stood by  the  psychologist  and  in  its  application  to  advertising. 

"The  man  who  is  born  blind  is  not  only  unable  to  see 
objects,  but  he  is  equally  unable  to  imagine  how  they  look. 
After  we  have  looked  at  objects  we  can  see  them  in  our  mind's 
eye  with  more  or  less  distinctness,  even  if  our  eyes  are  closed 
or  the  object  is  far  removed  from  us.  When  we  imagine 
how  an  absent  object  looks  we  are  said  to  have  a  visual  image 
of  it.  We  can  not  imagine  how  a  thing  looks  unless  we  have 
actually  Feen  it  in  our  previous  experience.  The  imagination 
can  take  the  data  of  former  experience  and  unite  them  into 

1  On  The  Psychology  of  Advertising,  Professor  Harlow  Gale, 
author  and  publisher,  Minneapolis,  Minn.,  1900. 

2  Mahin's     Magazine,     Chicago.     This     magazine     contains 
monthly  articles  on  The  Psychology  of  Advertising. 

3  Found  in  the  published  proceedings  of  the  various  adver- 
tising clubs. 

4  The  Theory  of  Advertising,  by  Walter  Dill  Scott,   Boston. 
Small,  Maynard  &  Co.,  1903. 


THE  MATHEMATICS  OF  ADVERTISING         283 

new  forms,  but  all  the  details  of  the  new  formation  must  be 
taken  from  the  former  experience  of  the  individual. 

"The  man  who  is  born. deaf  can  neither  hear  nor  imagine 
what  sounds  are  like.  Whatever  we  have  heard,  we  can  live 
over  again  in  imagination — we  can  form  auditory  images  of 
it.  We  can  not  imagine  any  sound  which  we  have  not  ac- 
tually heard,  although  we  can  unite  into  new  combinations 
the  sounds  and  tones  which  we  have  experienced. 

"  I  can  imagine  how  beafsteak  tastes,  but  I  can  not  imagine 
the  taste  of  hashish,  for  in  all  my  past  experience  I  never 
have  tasted  it,  and  do  not  even  know  which  one  of  my  former 
experiences  it  is  like.  If  I  knew  that  it  tasted  like  pepper, 
or  like  pepper  and  vinegar  mixed,  I  could  form  some  sort 
of  an  image  of  its  taste;  but  as  it  is  I  am  perfectly  helpless 
when  I  try  to  imagine  it.  I  can,  with  more  or  less  success, 
imagine  how  everything  tastes  which  I  have  eaten,  but  I 
can  not  imagine  the  taste  of  a  thing  which  I  have  not  touched 
to  my  tongue.  Analogous  descriptions  could  be  given  of 
images  of  movements,  of  smell,  of  touch,  of  heat,  of  cold,  of 
pressure  and  of  pain. 

"  We  have  no  direct  knowledge  of  the  minds  of  our  neigh- 
bors; we  assume  that  their  thinking  is  very  much  like  ours, 
for  their  actions — outward  expressions  of  thought — are  so 
similar  to  ours.  It  was  formerly  assumed  that,  given  any 
particular  object  of  thought,  all  normal  minds  would  reach 
the  same  conclusion  concerning  it,  and,  furthermore,  the 
different  stages  in  the  line  of  thought  and  the  "mind  stuff" 
would  be  the  same  throughout.  Such  a  conception  is  wholly 
false.  Normal  minds  reach  different  conclusions  under  ap- 
parently identical  outward  circumstances,  but  there  is  a 
greater  difference  in  the  terms  of  thought,  or  the  mind  stuff 
with  which  the  thinking  is  done.  One  man  thinks  in  terms 
of  sight.  He  is  said  to  be  'eye-minded/  His  thinking  is 
a  rapid  succession  of  pictures.  When  he  thinks  of  a  violin 
he  thinks  rather  how  it  looks  than  how  it  sounds. 

"Another  man  thinks  in  terms  of  sound.  He  is  'ear- 
minded.'  His  thinking  is  a  succession  of  sounds.  When 
he  thinks  of  his  friends  he  hears  their  voices,  but  can  not 


284  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

possibly  imagine  how  they  look.  He  does  not  know  that 
there  are  other  possible  forms  of  thought,  and  so  assumes 
that  all  people  think  in  terms  of  sound  as  he  does.  If  he 
should  describe  a  battle  his  description  would  be  full  of  the 
roar  and  tumult  of  the  strife. 

"Another  man  is  'motor-minded.'  He  thinks  in  terms 
of  movements.  Even  when  he  looks  at  a  painting  he  whis- 
pers inaudibly  to  himself  a  description  of  the  painting.  Later 
when  he  describes  the  picture  to  a  friend  he  may  do  it  in 
the  terms  which  he  whispered  to  himself  when  he  was  looking 
at  the  picture. 

"Thus  it  has  been  found  that  there  are  great  personal 
differences  in  normal  individuals  in  their  ability  to  form 
certain  classes  of  mental  images. 

'  "All  persons  seem  to  be  able  to  form  at  least  unclear  and 
indistinct  visual  images;  most  persons  seem  to  have  some 
ability  in  forming  auditory  images;  very  many  can  imagine 
movements  with  some  degree  of  satisfaction.  There  are 
many  who  can  not  imagine  how  pickles  taste ;  others  can  not 
imagine  the  odor  of  a  flower.  There  are  persons  who  have 
a  limited  ability  to  form  all  sorts  of  images,  but  most  persons 
have  a  very  decided  ability  for  one  class  and  a  corresponding 
weakness  for  others.  This  difference  in  the  ease  with  which 
certain  classes  of  images  can  be  formed  as  well  as  the  differ- 
ence in  individuals  in  imagining  different  classes  of  sensa- 
tions, is  followed  with  practical  consequences." 

This  all  illustrates  the  attempt  of  the  advertiser 
to  leave  off  groping  in  the  dark.  He  turns  to  psychol- 
ogy on  one  hand  to  learn,  if  he  can,  how  the  human 
mind  is  impressed  by  certain  kinds  of  advertising, 
and  to  statistics  on  the  other  hand  to  see  if  his  deduc- 
tions are  correct.  Then  he  needs  statistics  showing 
the  number,  location  and  distribution  of  the  people 
to  whom  he  must  appeal — whether  the  consumer  or 
the  dealer. 


THE  MATHEMATICS   OF  ADVERTISING         285 

There  is  in  existence  no  accurate  list  of  drug-stores, 
grocery  stores  or  hardware  stores.  There  is  not  even 
an  accurate  tabulation  of  the  number  in  each  of  these 
lines  in  the  country.  Such  tabulation  is  made  diffi- 
cult on  account  of  various  classifications.  The  dis- 
tinction between  department  and  dry-goods  stores  is 
not  accurate.  In  some  towns  some  lines  are  carried  in 
a  common  store  which  in  other  towns  are  distributed 
among  different  stores.  Stationery  and  fancy  goods 
are  carried  at  drug-stores  in  some  towns,  which  in 
other  towns  are  a  part  of  the  stock  of  a  bookstore. 
The  Census  Bureau  has  not  yet  taken  up  this  depart- 
ment of  work.  An  effort  is  now  being  made  to  bring 
pressure  to  bear  upon  the  Census  Bureau  to  collect  sta- 
tistics which  will  be  especially  valuable  to  the  general 
advertiser. 

What  the  advertiser  wants  to  know  are  such  things 
as  the  number  of  people  engaged  in  retailing  the  dif- 
ferent lines  of  goods,  the  number  of  stores  in  a  given 
territory,  the  annual  sales  in  all  lines  of  goods,  the 
variation  in  demand  for  certain  goods  in  certain  parts 
of  the  country. 

During  1904  there  was  organized  an  association 
known  as  the  International  Advertisers'  Association. 
The  purpose  of  this  organization  is  to  ascertain  just 
such  facts.  Among  its  leading  objects  are  the  secur- 
ing of  statistics  from  the  United  States  Government 
and  elsewhere  which  will  be  helpful  to  advertisers, 
to  secure  changes  in  the  postal  laws  which  will  be 
more  fair  to  the  advertiser  than  the  present  laws,  to 
give  him  advantages  and  privileges  which  the  postal 
department  can  well  afford  to  give  him.  It  is  also 
intended  to  secure  a  ruling  upon  house  organs  which 


286  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

will  place  them  in  a  class  by  themselves  between  the 
present  rate  for  second-  and  third-class  matter.  A 
parcel  post  will  also  be  demanded.  The  chief  object 
of  this  organization,  however,  is  to  secure  statistics, 
classify  them,  sift  them  out,  and  have  available  for 
every  member  facts  which  will  greatly  aid  him  in  pre- 
paring his  advertising  campaign. 

At  present  the  more  progressive  advertisers  secure 
these  figures  themselves  as  best  they  can.  For  in- 
stance, a  large  manufacturer  of  writing-paper  con- 
ducted a  thorough  investigation  in  a  selected  number 
of  towns  to  find  out  at  how  many  stores  in  each  of 
these  towns  the  inquirer  could  obtain  his  paper ; 
whether,  if  it  was  not  carried  in  stock,  a  substitute 
was  offered,  and  if  so,  what  paper  was  substituted ; 
whether  the  salesman  knew  of  the  advertising  that  was 
being  done,  and  whether  the  advertising  influenced 
the  sales,  and  how  much.  The  statistics  collected  in 
this  way  were  very  valuable  in  preparing  the  next 
year's  work. 

An  important  question  to  an  advertiser  in  regard 
to  a  publication  is,  to  what  sort  of  people  does  the 
publication  go  ?  Who  are  its  subscribers  ?  Are  they 
rich  people  or  are  they  poor  ?  Do  they  buy  grand 
pianos  or  do  they  buy  melodeons  ?  Are  they  Amer- 
icans or  are  they  foreigners  ?  Are  they  native  Amer- 
icans or  are  they  domesticated  ?  Are  they  farmers, 
or  business  men  or  women  ? 

A  certain  magazine  makes  the  following  claim 
in  regard  to  its  subscription  list : 

"  A  magazine  that  has  on  its  subscription  list  such  names 
as  Morgan,  Gould,  Astor,  Vanderbilt,  Carnegie,  Whitney, 
etc.,  can  certainly  render  certain  service  to  the  advertisers 
of  high-grade  wares." 


THE  MATHEMATICS  OF  ADVERTISING         287 

Is  this  a  wise  sentence  or  is  it  a  foolish  one  ?  Is 
it  a  good  business  stroke,  or  is  it  a  piece  of  snobbery  ? 
Is  a  magazine  which  reaches  J.  Pierpont  Morgan  a 
better  advertising  medium  than  a  magazine  which 
reaches  John  Smith,  one  of  the  many  employees  of 
one  of  Morgan's  many  industries?  Is  it  possible  to 
reach  the  very  rich  by  any  advertising  whatever  ? 

It  seems  that  a  magazine  which  reaches  Mr.  Mor- 
gan's chief  clerk,  or  his  private  secretary,  or  his  valet, 
or  his  head  gardener,  or  his  butler,  or  the  captain  of 
his  steam-yacht,  would  have  ten  times  as  much  adver- 
tising value  to  the  manufacturer  of  high-grade  wares 
as  a  magazine  that  reached  Mr.  Morgan  himself. 
Very  rich  people  are  influenced  by  advertising,  and 
are  reached  by  it,  but  indirectly  rather  than  directly. 
A  rich  man  is  surrounded  by  circle  after  circle 
of  business  and  personal  associates  and  employees. 
Nearly  everything  that  he  does  is  done  through  many 
hands.  While  he  undoubtedly  exercises  personal  se- 
lection in  a  great  many  cases,  the  merits  of  each 
article  are  usually  investigated  by  a  deputy. 

For  instance,  if  Mr.  Morgan  is  going  to  buy  a 
steam-yacht,  he  probably  takes  more  personal  inter- 
est in  it  than  in  the  purchase  of,  say,  boilers,  or  cap- 
stans, or  anchors.  These  equipments  would  probably 
be  bought  by  the  captain  or  the  engineer  of  the  yacht. 
All  questions  which  Mr.  Morgan  decides,  except  those 
of  the  greatest  importance,  are  decided  or  partly  de- 
cided by  assistants  and  employees.  Undoubtedly  the 
hired  household  servants  in  his  various  houses  have 
much  to  do  with  buying  most  of  the  supplies  for  those 
houses.  Any  magazine  which  has  a  large  general  cir- 
culation reaching  all  sorts  of  plain  Americans,  carries 
20 


288  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

advertising  which  has  more  effect  upon  the  Morgans, 
Goulds,  and  Astors  than  any  magazine  which  has  their 
names  upon  its  subscription  list. 

Take,  for  instance,  McClure's  Magazine.  It  is 
undoubtedly  read  by  at  least  a  thousand  people  who 
have  more  or  less  to  do  with  the  things  which  Mr. 
Morgan  buys,  or  which  Mr.  Gould  buys,  or  which  Mr. 
Astor  buys.  Then  again,  a  very  small  portion  of  the 
things  which  Mr.  Morgan  buys  are  used  by  him  per- 
sonally. Mr.  Morgan  himself  can  only  eat  three 
meals  a  day.  Whether  he  eats  Force  or  not  for  break- 
fast, his  meal  would  not  call  for  any  bigger  sale  of 
Force  than  the  breakfast  of  his  coachman  or  even  of 
his  smallest  office-boy.  On  the  other  hand,  if  it  were 
an  automobile,  it  would  probably  be  bought  in  collab- 
oration with  his  chauffeur,  and  the  net  result  of  all 
advertising  of  autos  would  probably  have  some  bear- 
ing on  his  decision. 

Advertising  that  is  persistent,  the  kind  of  adver- 
tising which  strikes  the  eye  and  mind  everywhere  in 
the  pages  of  magazines  and  newspapers,  on  the  street- 
cars and  on  bill-boards,  affects  the  whole  human  fam- 
ily, big  or  little,  rich  or  poor,  more  or  less.  It  is 
doubtful  if  Mr.  Morgan  was  ever  reached  by  a  mail- 
order advertisement  or  any  other  form  of  direct  ad- 
vertising. It  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  Mrs.  Morgan 
reads  the  advertisements  of  dry-goods  stores  in  the 
daily  newspapers,  although  being  a  woman,  even 
though  a  rich  one,  she  may  do  that.  Undoubtedly, 
Mr.  Morgan  has  heard  of  Pears'  Soap,  Ivory  Soap, 
Force,  H-O  and  hundreds  of  other  articles,  whether 
he  consciously  ever  read  an  advertisement  of  them  or 
not.  Some  of  his  money  is  invested  in  them,  anyway. 


THE  MATHEMATICS  OF  ADVERTISING         289 

And  after  all,  this  necessity  of  reaching  the  rich 
is  not  a  very  great  one.  The  wealthy  class  is  a  very 
small  percentage  of  the  great  American  nation,  and 
while  they  buy  a  great  many  things,  they  do  not  buy 
more  than  the  rest  of  the  country,  and  a  good  part 
of  the  buying  public  is  made  up  of  the  employees  and 
dependents  of  these  rich  people.  Therefore,  the  news- 
papers and  magazines  which  circulate  generally  are 
after  all  the  best  mediums  for  reaching  the  rich. 

In  discussing  the  question  of  direct  or  indirect  re- 
turns from  advertising  the  following  paragraph  from 
a  published  interview  with  George  Horace  Lorimer, 
editor  of  the  Saturday  Evening  Post,  is  of  interest : 

"The  circulation  of  a  paper  like  the  Post  is  an  interesting 
thing  to  watch,  for  it  reflects  the  slightest  changes  in  editorial 
policy.  While  we  get  many  letters  from  readers  indicating 
their  tastes,  I  believe  that  it  is  far  more  wise  to  define  the 
wishes  of  the  great  silent  majority.  Perhaps  it  would  be 
profitable  for  advertisers  as  well.  I  belong  to  the  silent 
majority  myself — buy  advertised  articles  by  preference,  but 
never  write  to  the  advertisers." 

There  is  a  great  truth  in  these  words — a  truth 
which  the  large  and  successful  advertisers  have  al- 
ready defined. 

A  new  advertiser  usually  expects  and  wants  direct 
returns.  He  wants  to  feel  that  somebody  is  reading 
his  advertising.  The  absence  of  direct  returns  is  not 
only  not  proof  that  the  advertising  is  not  doing  its 
work,  but  the  receipt  of  direct  returns  is  not  even 
proof  that  the  advertising  is  good. 

Advertising  is  a  great  force  and  a  succession  of 
accumulated  impressions,  and  the  greater  number  of 


290  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

people  who  are  influenced  by  it  are  never  known, 
at  least  definitely,  to  have  been  reached.  These  are 
the  people  like  Mr.  Lorimer  and  like  ninety-nine  one- 
hundredths  of  the  better  sort  of  men  of  this  country 
— keen,  wide-awake,  alert  and  receptive — who  go  in 
the  way  of  the  least  resistance. 

These  men  are  reached  in  various  sorts  of  ways 
by  various  sorts  of  advertising,  which  have  effect  upon 
them  and  which  ultimately  result  in  their  buying. 
Most  of  them  would  be  surprised  if  they  were  told 
that  they  were  interested  by  advertising  and  acted  ac- 
cordingly. It  is  as  if  there  were  some  influence  in 
the  air  which  has  hot  been  correctly  defined.  They 
are  aware  that  there  is  such  and  such  an  article,  they 
know  its  good  qualities,  but  they  do  not  know  where 
they  got  that  impression.  It  may  be  from  the  chance 
remark  of  some  one  else  who  read  the  advertisement ; 
it  may  be  the  effect  of  the  family's  interest  in  the 
advertising,  or  it  may  be  that  unconscious,  but  never- 
theless effective,  influence  of  the  advertisements  them- 
selves, which  asserts  itself  even  when  the  advertise- 
ments are  not  read. 

There  are  really  just  two  sorts  of  advertising: 
The  great  general  publicity  covering  the  country  and 
cropping  out  everywhere  in  favor  of  an  article  which 
can  be  benefited  by  such  widespread  publicity,  and 
the  fewer  articles  of  which  the  advertising  must  be 
self-supporting,  and  of  which  each  advertisement  must 
bring  in  sufficient  returns  to  pay  at  least  for  that 
advertisement,  to  pay  for  the  articles  and  to  pay  a 
profit.  The  latter  form  of  advertising  does  not  offer 
anywhere  near  the  field  for  ability,  generalship  and 
imagination  as  does  the  other  problem. 


THE  MATHEMATICS  OF  ADVERTISING         291 

Notwithstanding  the  strong  conviction  on  the  part 
of  the  advertiser  that  advertising  in  certain  publica- 
tions pays,  the  publications  themselves  are  getting 
together  some  very  interesting  figures  in  regard  to 
their  own  subscribers. 

McClure's  Magazine  has  made  a  complete  list  of 
its  subscribers  in  Cleveland  and  classified  them  very 
carefully  by  occupations,  the  list  showing  just  how 
many  bankers  read  McClure's,  how  many  day  labor- 
ers, how  many  school-teachers,  doctors,  dentists,  law- 
yers, and  so  on.  It  shows  how  many  of  the  profes- 
sional class,  how  many  of  the  leisure  class  and  how 
many  of  the  working  class  read  McClure's.  It  is 
usually  assumed  that  a  publication  of  the  class  of  Mc- 
Clure's goes  to  the  home,  and  that  a  home  consists 
of  a  family  averaging  five  persons.  It  is  also  assumed 
that  the  tastes  and  wants  of  a  family  are  in  the  same 
class  as  those  of  the  head  of  the  family  whose  name 
appears  as  the  subscriber  to  the  publication. 

The  kind  of  residences  to  which  the  publication 
goes  was  illustrated  in  another  way  by  the  Ladies' 
World.  In  a  number  of  selected  towns  the  home  of 
every  subscriber  in  each  town  was  photographed. 
These  photographs  were  printed  in  sets  by  cities  so 
that  an  advertiser  could  see  at  a  glance  the  character 
of  the  homes  to  which  his  advertisement  would  be 
going  if  printed  in  the  Ladies'  World.  This  was  a 
graphic  way  to  show  character  in  circulation. 

A  class  paper  has  gone  even  farther  than  that. 
The  Northwestern  Agriculturist  is  a  paper  reaching 
the  farming  element.  There  being  a  certain  amount 
of  skepticism  in  the  minds  of  advertisers  as  to  the 
kind  of  things  a  farmer  buys,  especially  of  the  class 


292  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

of  goods  known  as  luxuries,  the  Northwestern  Agri- 
culturist instituted  among  its  subscribers  a  very  in- 
teresting contest.  A  list  of  fifty-one  questions  was 
printed  in  a  certain  issue,  and  an  offer  of  a  present 
made  to  all  who  filled  in  and  returned  the  entire  list 
of  questions  within  a  fortnight.  A  total  of  2,621  let- 
ters were  received,  and  the  entire  list  had  in  most 
cases  been  answered.  The  object  of  the  Agriculturist 
was  to  prove  that  farmers  use  just  as  high-grade  and 
expensive  goods  as  the  city  dweller.  The  120,000 
different  answers  were  tabulated,  and  the  results 
shown  are  summed  up  in  the  following  statement: 
The  two  great  lessons  to  be  gotten  from  the  figures  are : 

1.  That  farmers  are  using  the  best  grade  of  goods, 
as,  for  example,  note  the  kind  of  watches  they  carry 

—1,190  Elgins  and  707  Walthams  (both  high-grade 
watches),  only  14  cheap  Waterburys  and  16  Inger- 
solls. 

2.  That  farmers  are  using  the  goods  which  have 
been  extensively  advertised  in  farm  papers,   rather 
than  goods  advertised  in  the  daily  papers  or  mag- 
azines, as  is  illustrated  by  the  fact  that  767  report 
that  they  are  using  Fairbanks'   Gold  Dust    (which 
has  been  advertised  in  the  farm  papers),  while  only 
93  use  Pyle's  Pearline  which,  though  advertised  in 
magazines,   daily  papers   and  street-cars,  has  never 
used  the  farm  press. 

This  second  illustration  is  confirmed  by  referring 
again  to  the  watches.  Both  Waltham  and  Elgin 
watches  have  been  advertised  in  farm  papers,  while 
the  makers  of  cheap  watches  have  evidently  recog- 
nized the  critical  demands  of  farmers,  for  the  adver- 
tising of  Ingersoll  and  Waterbury  watches  has  hith- 


THE  MATHEMATICS  OF  ADVERTISING         293 

erto  been  confined  to  papers  or  magazines  of  city 
circulation,  in  spite  of  the  too  general  claim  of  inex- 
perienced advertisers :  "  Our  goods  are  of  too  high 
grade  for  farmers'  trade."  The  statistics  prove  that 
for  farmers'  trade  the  cheaper  goods  are  not  the  readi- 
est sellers ;  farmers  demand  good  goods  and  are  both 
willing  and  able  to  pay  for  such,  if  they  are  advertised 
in  the  farm  papers.  At  least  it  remains  to  be  proved 
that  cheap  goods  could  also  be  sold  to  farmers. 

3.  That  machinery  which  is  advertised  only  in 
trade  papers  reaching  the  dealer,  rather  than  in  farm 
papers  reaching  the  men  who  use  such  machinery,  in 

"What  Make  of  Baking  Powder  Do  You  Use?" 

Of  the  2,621  letters  received,  there  were  1,894  which  answered 
the  above  question  and  727  which  ignored  it. 


7 

...                 g 

10 

-                             56 

Coolers  Choice 

g 

21 

1^4 

Reliable 

CQK 

OK 

Eddy^eTiable 
Electric  Light     - 
Grand  Union  - 
Griggs,  Cooper  Co. 

-        -        -    18 
6 
-    26 

10 

Schilling  -       - 
Silver  Star  - 
Snowflake 

.        .        .        -      9 

20 
-    20 

In  addition  to  the  above,  112  families  out  of  1,894  use  43 
other  makes  of  Baking  Powders,  no  one  of  which  is  men- 
tioned five  times. 

Total  using  Baking  Powder,     1,875 

Using  none,  19 

Grand  Total,     1,894 

THIS  TABLE  PROVES  CONCLUSIVELY  THAT  ROYAL,  WHICH  IS  THE 
BRAND  OF  BAKING  POWDER  MOST  THOROUGHLY  ADVERTISED, 
IS  THE  ONE  THAT  IS  USED  TO  THE  GREATEST  EXTENT  BY 
FARMERS. 


294  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

no  case  proves  the  most  popular.  For  example,  in 
plows,  the  John  Deere  plows  are  far  in  the  lead ;  John 
Deere  &  Company  advertise  to  the  consumer  more 
liberally  than  any  other  plow  manufacturers.  This 
example  repeats  itself  in  many  of  the  tables. 

A  few  of  the  tables  given  in  the  book  are  repro- 
duced here,  more  to  show  the  character  and  re- 
sults of  this  investigation  than  as  statistics  for  ref- 
erence. 

"What  Make  of  Toilet  Soap  Do  You  Use?" 

Of  2,621  letters  received,  there  were  1,507  which  answered  the 
above  question  and  1,114  which  ignored  it. 


Armour  &  Co. 

-      9 

Haskins  Bros. 

-    54 

Beach  &  Son 

6 

Ivory    - 

-      227 

Big  Four  .... 

-    21 

Jap  Rose         ... 

.       .    41 

Bullock,  Ward  &  Co. 

5 

Kirk      .... 

86 

Buttermilk      - 

-    23 

Lara         .... 

-      5 

Castile  - 

-      128 

Larkin's  Oatmeal 

61 

Cocoa      .       ... 

-      9 

Lenox      .... 

-      9 

Cocoa-Sterit 

5 

Minnesota  Soap  Co.   - 

11 

Crofts  &  Reed 

-    31 

Mother's  Medicated       - 

-      5 

Cudahy's  Borax  Castile 
Cuticura  -       -       -       - 

-    49 

Palm  Olive  - 
Pears'       .... 

26 
-    20 

Dawson's  Witch  Hazel 

5 

Swift     .... 

5 

Fairy        -        ... 

-  103 

Tar  -       .... 

-    34 

Glycerine     - 

68 

Watkins       - 

7 

Glycerine  Tar 

-      9 

White  Lily      - 

-    17 

Graham  Bros. 

5 

White  Rose  - 

9 

Grandpa's  Wonder 

-  141 

Williams  - 

-    17 

In  addition  to  the  above,  284  families  out  of  1,507  use 
Toilet  Soaps  made  by  117  different  makers,  no  one  of 
which  is  mentioned  Jive  times. 

Total  using  Toilet  Soap,     1,472 

Using  none,  35 

Grand  Total,     1,507 

THE  ODDS  IN  THIS  TABLE  ARE  IN  FAVOR  OF  IVORY.  WE  THINK 
MOST  OBSERVERS  OF  ADVERTISING  WOULD  SAY  THAT  IVORY 
SOAP  IS  ADVERTISED  MORE  THAN  ANY  OTHER  BRAND,  BUT 

EVEN  PEARS',  COSTING  FIFTEEN  CENTS,  is  USED  TO  SOME 

EXTENT   BY   FARMERS. 


THE  MATHEMATICS  OF  ADVERTISING         295 

"Do  You  Use  Cereal  or  Breakfast  Foods? 
What  Kinds?" 

Of  the  2,621  letters  received,  there  were  2,191  which  answered 
the  above  question  and  430  which  ignored  it. 

American  Cereal  Co.     -       -       -      8  Pettijohn 39 

Banner  Oats                                        81  Quaker  Oats                               -  180 

Cream  of  Wheat    -       -       -       -  145  Ralston 15 

Force 147  Rolled  Oats         ....  41 

Grape-Nuts 227  Saxon  Oatmeal                              -  18 

Great  Western    ....         5  Shredded  Wheat  Biscuit  -       -  18 

Horse  Shoe  Rolled  Oats       -       -      6  Vitos 71 

Korn  Krisp 15  Wheat  Hearts     ....  6 

Malta  Vita 55  Wheatine 21 

Mother's  Oats     -       ...       30  Wheatlet 19 

Oatmeal 493  Yankee  Rolled  Oats      -       -       -  63 

In  addition  to  the  above,  226  families  out  of  2,191  use 
Breakfast  Foods  of  198  different  makes,  no  one  of  which 
is  mentioned  more  than  five  times. 

Total  using  Breakfast  Foods,     1,929 

Using  none,         262 

Grand  Total,     2,191 

THIS  TABLE  SHOWS  NO  SUCH  OVERWHELMING  RESULTS  IN  FAVOR 
OF  ANY  ONE  ARTICLE,  BECAUSE  ALL  BREAKFAST  FOODS  ARE 
ADVERTISED  TO  SOME  EXTENT  AND  MOST  QUITE  LARGELY, 
SO  THERE  IS  A  MORE  EQUAL  DIVISION  THAN  IS  SHOWN  IN 
THE  BAKING-POWDER  CHART. 

"Have  You  in  Your  Family  One  or  More 
American  Made  Watches?  What  Make?" 

Of  the  2,621  letters  received,  there  were  2,621  which  answered 
the  above  question. 

American  Co.       -       -       -       -  42  Ingersoll 16 

Atlas 5  Montgomery  Ward  &  Co.         -  6 

Aurora  ......  8  New  Haven     -----  6 

Century 12  Rockford 36 

Columbia 25  Seth  Thomas 22 

Dueber 5  Springfield 42 

Elgin 1190  Standard 17 

Hampden 96  Trenton        -----  6 

Hamilton 11  Waltham 707 

Illinois  Watch  Co.    -               -  18  Waterbury 14 

In  addition  to  the  above,  114  families  out  of  2,621  use 
American  Watches  of  80  different  makes,  no  one  of  which 
is  mentioned  jive  times. 

Total  using  American  Watches,     2,398 

Using  none,         223 

Grand  Total,     2,621 

THE  REMARKABLE   LEAD   OF   ELGIN   WATCHES   IS   THE   RESULT  OF 
PERSISTENT   ADVERTISING   TO   REACH  FARMERS. 


296  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

A  similar  plan  was  applied  to  the  publications  of 
the  Butterick  Publishing  Company  by  Thomas  Bal- 
mer,  advertising  manager  of  the  Butterick  Trio.  His 
experiment  was  on  a  larger  scale  and  was  far  more 
representative,  as  the  readers  of  the  Butterick  Trio 
are  supposably  distributed  among  all  classes  and  ranks 
of  society  more  thoroughly  than  the  readers  of  the 
Northwestern  Agriculturist. 

Mr.  Balmer  set  out  to  find  out  "  what  proportion 
of  advertised  goods  are  used  by  our  readers;  what 
proportion  of  our  readers  know  and  recognize  these 
goods  as  being  advertised  goods;  what  proportion  of 
our  readers  buy  advertised  goods  because  they  are  ad- 
vertised ;  and  more  than  all  else — to  point  out  clearly 
what  advertised  line  of  goods  our  readers  are  most  in- 
terested in,  in  order  that  our  advertising  pages  may 
contain  only  such  offerings  as  are  of  the  greatest  inter- 
est to  the  greater  number  of  our  readers." 

Forms  were  inserted  in  each  copy  of  the  Delin- 
eator, The  Designer,  and  The  New  Idea,  the  three 
magazines  of  the  Butterick  Trio,  for  July,  1904, 
giving  a  long  list  of  articles  used  in  every  household : 

Furniture,  Laundry  sundries, 

House  furnishings,  Children's  wearing  apparel, 

Bedroom  sundries,  Toilet  articles, 

Dining-room  sundries,  Sewing  and  dressmaking 
Heating  and  lighting,-  sundries, 

Nursery  sundries,  Wearing  apparel, 

Foods,  Outing  goods, 

Kitchen  utensils  and  Musical  instruments, 

sundries,  Miscellaneous. 

Under  each  general  heading  was  a  list  of  specific 
articles.  Under  wearing  apparel  were  named : 


THE  MATHEMATICS  OF  ADVERTISING         297 

Gloves,  Men's  clothing  (ready- 
Corsets,  made), 

Collars,  Men's  stockings, 

Underwear  (union  suits  Men's  shirts, 

or    two-piece    suits,  Men's  collars, 

wool,  cotton,  silk,  silk  Men's  ties, 

and  wool  or  linen),  Men's  shoes, 

Hose  supporters,  Men's  gloves, 

Skirt  supporters,  Razors, 

Boots  and  shoes,  Watches, 

Ladies'  ready-made  suits,  Hair  goods, 

Boys'  clothes,  Hosiery  (women's), 

Millinery. 

The  subscriber  was  asked  to  answer  the  following 
questions : 

1.  What  brand  or  make  do  you  use  or  buy? 

2.  Why  did  you  select  it? 

3.  If  you  had  to  buy  again    (or  if  you  have  not  bought 
before)  what  would  you  buy? 

4.  Why  would  you  select  it? 

To  repay  the  reader  for  her  trouble  in  filling  out 
the  chart,  the  presents  were  offered  in  the  form  of 
books,  fancy  articles  and  the  like  for  each  filled-out 
chart.  Over  five  thousand  reports  were  received.  The 
results  were  carefully  tabulated  and  comprised  a  for- 
midable array  of  statistics  for  the  advertiser,  present 
or  prospective.  On  the  single  subject  of  hosiery,  for 
instance,  the  results  on  page  298  were  shown. 

The  brands  showing  the  greatest  number  of  users 
are  the  ones  most  largely  advertised. 

A  very  remarkable  investigation  was  carried  on 
in  the  Textile  World  Record  under  the  auspices  of 


298 


MODERN  ADVERTISING 


WOMEN'S  HOSIERY 


WHY  1 

3lD 

Yov 

SELI 

CCT  I 

T? 

WHAT  BRAND  OR  MAKE  DO  ^ 
USE  OR  BUY  ? 

ou 

Advertised. 

Eecommended. 

1 

O 

Preferred  it. 

Durable. 

1 

f 

I 

I 

Amazon  Knitting  Co.    .    .    . 
Black  Cat                      .    . 

2 

477 

1 

80 

1 

7 

34 

1 

5 

°0 

^ 

84 

- 

80 

1 

1 

1 

3 

65 

9, 

3 

9, 

Cashmere     

16 

3 

97 

1 

1 

Des  Moiues  Hosiery  Mills  .    . 
Davis             

4 
1 

- 

- 

- 

- 

- 

- 

- 

Eiffel  Black  . 

90 

1 

1 

1 

Fast  Black                 .... 

53 

8 

Fav 

149 

13 

9 

13 

1 

5 

1 

0 

Granite  Dye          .    .             . 

15 

1 

9 

1 

86 

8 

9 

1 

1 

1 

«• 

1dP 

Hayne  Knit  

4 

9, 

1 

105 

8 

1 

fi 

1 

1 

2 

Matchless     ... 

0 

p 

1 

Onyx                 .             . 

'51 

"6 

1 

10 

9 

g 

1 

16 

51 

4 

1 

1 

2 

1 

Shawknit  ... 

°R 

4 

1 

1 

2 

j 

Silk           .    .    . 

17 

j 

j. 

14 

1 

Topsev 

189 

14 

5 

19 

1 

1 

g 

18 

86 

1 

7 

1 

1 

White  Foot 

6 

York  Knit.  Mills  4-Thread     . 
All  kinds  .... 

229 
54 

19 

- 

1 

- 

- 

- 

- 

- 

- 

206 

Miscellaneous       . 

305 

10 

g 

15 

2 

4 

3 

10 

THE  MATHEMATICS  OF  ADVERTISING         299 

Mr.  Balmer  to  find  out  the  answers  to  the  following 
questions  in  regard  to  the  leading  lines  of  textiles: 

L  What  the  customer  asked  for. 

2.  For  what  purpose. 

3.  Why  she  asked  for  it. 

4.  What  did  you  sell  her? 

5.  Why  did  you  sell  it? 

6.  Why  did  she  not  buy? 

The  leading  department  stores  of  the  country  were 
selected  as  the  basis  of  investigation.  The  salesgirls 
in  the  different  departments  were  given  blank  forms 
which  they  we're  to  fill  out  in  regard  to  the  first  ten 
customers  who  came  to  their  counter  on  a  given  day. 
By  taking  the  first  ten  a  better  average  was  arrived 
at  than  by  making  a  selection  from  all  of  the  customers 
of  the  day. 

The  topics  selected  out  of  a  long  list  of  textiles 
were  the  following : 

Muslins,  Underwear, 

Silks,  Hosiery, 

Dress-goods,  Blankets. 

The  form  used  by  the  salesgirls  for  the  investiga- 
tion in  muslins  is  shown  on  the  following  page,  filled 
out  as  it  was  turned  in. 

The  statistics  from  hundreds  of  such  slips  were 
collected,  analyzed  and  classified  into  tables  for  the 
use  of  the  advertiser.  One  of  the  articles  in  the  Tex- 
tile World  Eecord  had  the  following  to  say  about 
the  value  of  these  investigations : 

"The  general  lessons  to  be  learned  from  this  array  of  statis- 
tics all  point  to  the  fact  that  the  shopper  asks  for  goods  by 


MU 

SLIN. 

WB 

AT  8HI   UU 

FOR  WHAT 

fOH  IT* 

WHAT  010  TOO  uu. 

War  DID^TOO 

IF   TOO    DOlTT  stLL 
HEB,  WHY  NOT  ? 

1. 

Muslin. 

General. 

Looked  at  Fruit 

She   selected    it, 

Dwight  Anchor 

Lonsdnle  and 
Dwight   An- 
chor       B't 
FruitofLoom. 

dale  was  cheap- 
er. 

Lonsdale    loo 
loosely  woven. 

ft 

Kruit  of 
Loom. 

Sheets. 

Mother  and 
neighbors  rec- 
ommend it. 

Fruit  of  Loom. 

Gives  good  satis- 
faction. 

Did    not  care  to 
try    anything 

3. 

Lonadale. 

Night 
gowns. 

Heard  it  washed 

Burleigh    long 
cloth. 

Everyone  who  ha-* 
tried  it  keeps 
asking  for  it  for 
underwear. 

Lonsdale    muslin 
was    not    Hue 
enough  and  the 
Cambric  was  not 
so  soft  in  texture 
as  Burleigh. 

4. 

Fruit  of 
Loom. 

Pillow 
cases. 

Had  use.l  it  for 
live  years. 

Bought  Fruit  of 

Dwight  An- 
chor to  try. 

Dwight  Anchor 
wears  well  and 
launders  well. 
Many  women 
prefer  it. 

5. 

Muslin. 

Shirts. 

Something  that 
would  launder 
and  wear  well. 

Pride  of  West. 

Excellent  for 
shirts  Hnd  cuts 
to  good  advan- 

IX  iD  '* 

Fruit  of  Loom  too 
thin  in  weight 
and  Dwight  An- 
chor  too  closely 
woven  and  A  rm. 

6. 

Cambric. 

Aprons. 

Had  never  used 
it  for  this  pur- 
pose, but 
thought.it 
.would  make 
up  well. 

India  Linon. 

Pretty  for  aprons, 
launders  well- 
perhaps  doesn't 
last  so  long. 

Cambric  was  not 
what  she  really 
wanted. 

7. 

India 

Shirtwaist. 

Because  it  was 

Persian  Lawn. 

Finer   and    more 

IndU    Linon,    ni- 

pretty 

waists.  y 

val  lie.   was   not 
so  sheer  as  Per- 

8. 

Fruit  of 
Loom. 

Child's 
drawers. 

Wanted  some- 
thing that 
would  wear 
well. 

Pride  of  West. 

Stronger  weave 
and  good  for 
heavy  wear. 

0: 

Nainsook. 

Underwear 

Because     her 

Burleigh    lone 

Burleigh  is  espe- 

told  her  to. 

Nainsook. 

night  gowns 
and  drawers; 
Nainsook  better 
for  corset  cov. 

10. 

Muslin. 

Household 
and  hos- 
pital use. 

Unbleached  and 
an  antiseptic 
fabric  For 

bandage*. 

Lockwood  Mills 
unbleached; 
cheese  cloth 
for   hospital 
use. 

Lockwood  Mills  is 
strong  and  firm 
for  bandages, 
and  is  not  harsh 
to  the  touch. 

Did  not  want  any 
muslin   with 
dressing    or 
body.  -Selected 
Loekwuod   at 
once    without 
looking     at 
others. 

THE  MATHEMATICS  OF  ADVERTISING         301 

name  whenever  she  knows  the  name  of  any  goods  that  she 
considers  reliable  for  any  cause,  either  because  she  knows 
the  name  of  the  manufacturer,  has  heard  of  the  brand,  knows 


I.    What  she  asked  for 


Name  of  Goods. 


No. 


Fruit  of  Loom 27 

Lonsdale 12 

Pride  of  West 6 

Dwight  Anchor 3 

Wamsutta 3 

New  York  Mills 1 

«u      Berkeley  L.  C 

L  ockwood  Mills 1 

Jones'  Cambric 1 

Utica 1 

Field's  Longcloth 1 

Total 

Unbleached  muslin 4 

Best  muslin 4 

^      Strong  muslin 

2      Bird  Picture  muslin 

*>      Unspecified  muslin 

8  Cambric 7 

Nainsook 6 

Longcloth 5 

o  Indian  linen 2 

Sheeting 2 

Total 

One  (1)  did  not  ask 

Total  . 


Selections. 


57 


62 


120 


the  label,  has  used  the  goods  before,  or  been  recommended 
to  use  them  by  somebody  in  whom  she  has  confidence.  In 
every  case  the  shopper  used  what  previous  knowledge  she 


302  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

had  to  get  the  goods  she  wanted.  Without  advertising,  but 
simply  through  other  incidental  means,  the  name  or  some 
fact  about  the  article  had  been  stamped  upon  her. mind,  and 
in  her  way,  as  far  as  possible,  she  tried  to  indicate  to  the 
salesgirl  what  she  wanted.  Sometimes  she  gave  a  descrip- 
tion of  the  purpose  for  which  she  wanted  it.  Sometimes 
she  remembered  the  trade-mark  or  label.  Sometimes  she 
was  utterly  at  sea,  and  the  time  of  both  the  salesgirl  and 
the  shopper  was  consumed  until  the  shopper  could  get  what 
she  wanted." 

A  large  number  of  tables  were  made  up  from  these 
replies  answering  the  different  questions.  Two  of  the 
tables  are  shown  here  as  typical  of  the  rest. 

The  growth  of  advertising  in  this  country  and  in 
the  magazines  has  also  been  shown  by  figures.  For 
these  statistics  Mr.  Balmer  is  responsible.  The  Cen- 
tury Magazine  was  selected  as  one  of  the  oldest  and 
most  typical  American  magazines  and  one  that  had 
had  the  most  even  and  steady  business  growth.  The 
general  subject  of  food  was  taken  as  a  basis,  and  it 
was  shown  that  the  first  food  advertising  appeared 
during  1871,  and  was  confined  to  five  subjects  and 
six  advertisers  who  used  about  three  and  a  half  pages 
of  advertising  for  the  entire  year.  The  entrance  of 
every  new  food  into  the  advertising  world  is  shown 
by  the  chart,  the  date  of  its  entry  and  the  amount 
of  space  down  to  and  including  1903.  In  this  year 
thirty-five  advertisers  exploited  nineteen  articles  of 
food  in  142f  pages.  The  chart  is  given  in  full. 

George  B.  Waldron  was  retained  by  Mahin's  Mag- 
azine, an  advertising  paper  devoted  to  the  interests 
of  an  advertising  agency,  to  tabulate  statistics  from 
the  United  States  Census.  These  articles  and  tabula- 
tions showed  the  proportion  of  ignorant  and  illiter- 


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304 


MODERN  ADVERTISING 


ate  in  this  country  to  the  educated  and  their  distri- 
bution, the  classification  having  important  bearing 
upon  advertising,  as,  of  course,  those  who  can  not  read 
are  almost  completely  beyond  the  reach  of  adverti- 
sing. Schools  as  wealth  producers  and  the  intimate 
connection  between  education  and  the  earning  powers 
of  the  nation  was  the  idea  of  a  second  article,  and  a 


Pocket 


AND 


FOR 

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These  maps  are  beautifully  printed  in  colors 
and  show  on  a  large  scale  the  streams,  lakes, 
highways,  trolley  lines  and  railroads  in  New 
York,  New  Jersey  and  Pennsylvania,  reached 
by  the  Lackawanna  Railroad  and  its  connections. 
Invaluable  to  Automobile  Tourists, 

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A  good  map  is  a  silent  courier  of  out-door  enjoyment  Each 
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A  MAGAZINE    ADVERTISEMENT   IN     WHICH    THE    BOOKLET   IS    THE 
SUBJECT    OF  THE    ADVERTISEMENT. 


comparison  was  made  between  different  groups  of 
States.  The  two  hundred  thousand  miles  of  railroad 
employing  a  million  people  was  shown  in  its  bearing 
upon  advertising.  The  number  of  employees,  their 
classification,  their  total  earnings  and  their  earnings 
per  day  were  all  given  and  compared.  The  earning 
capacity  of  the  different  departments  of  railroad  work 
was  also  shown  and  compared.  In  the  same  way,  the 


THE  MATHEMATICS  OF  ADVERTISING        305 

sources  of  the  nation's  wealth  production  were  dis- 
cussed, and  the  mechanics,  farmers,  merchants  and 
railroad  men  compared.  The  number  and  nationali- 
ties of  foreign  farmers,  their  distribution  and  the  pub- 
lications they  read  were  given,  and  a  special  investi- 
gation was  devoted  to  German  Americans,  who  form 
a  large  portion  of  American  citizens,  and  who  have 
a  great  many  publications  in  their  own  language.  All 
of  these  statistics  were  compiled  with  the  idea  of  di- 
recting the  intelligent  expenditure  of  the  advertiser's 
money.  When,  for  instance,  an  advertiser  considers 
a  publication  printed  in  the  German  language,  it  is 
important  for  him  to  know  whether  the  Germans  as 
a  class  are  rich  or  poor,  where  they  are  located, 
whether  the  given  publication  circulates  in  that  terri-. 
tory,  and  whether  they  are  a  merchant,  a  manufactur- 
ing or  an  agricultural  class.  These  things  are  clearly 
shown  by  statistics. 

These  results  promise  great  things  for  the  defi- 
niteness  of  advertising  in  the  future.  The  psycholo- 
gist on  one  side  with  his  deductions  and  the  statistician 
on  the  other  with  his  patient  investigations  will  reduce 
that  part  of  advertising  which  can  be  so  reduced  to 
an  exact  science.  But  such  results  will  never  dispense 
with  the  trained  advertising  man.  Laws  are  codified, 
but  the  lawyer  succeeds  by  means  of  his  professional 
ability  and  his  knowledge  of  the  code. 


CHAPTEE  XII 

STYLES    OF    ADVERTISING 

AN  attempt  to  describe,  or  even  to  catalogue,  the 
different  styles  accepted  and  used  in  successful  adver- 
tising would  be  impossible  within  the  scope  of  this 
book.  Still  there  are  a  number  of  leading  styles  used 
by  successful  advertisers  which  may  be  noted  in  pass- 
ing and  illustrated  by  examples. 

When  a  general  advertiser  has  decided  upon  his 
plan  of  campaign,  has  selected  the  mediums  which  he 
thinks  reach  the  people  to  whom  he  wishes  to  appeal, 
and  has  decided  upon  the  amount  of  space  he  wishes 
to  use  so  as  to  determine  the  size  of  the  advertisements, 
then  he  is  confronted  by  these  questions : 

What  sort  of  "  copy  "  shall  he  use  ?  Shall  it  be 
plain  type  "  copy/7  or  shall  it  be  "  copy  "  in  connec- 
tion with  illustration  and  design  ?  If  plain  type,  shall 
it  have  a  border  or  not  ?  If  an  illustrated  or  designed 
advertisement,  shall  the  illustration  or  design  be  a 
simple  border  effect,  shall  it  be  an  illustration  of  the 
article  itself,  shall  it  be  an  idea,  shall  it  be  merely 
an  eye-catcher,  or  shall  it  be  a  character  which  is  to 
appear  in  a  series  of  advertisements  ?  Finally,  shall 
the  illustration  be  in  line  drawing  for  reproduction 
by  zinc  etching,  or  a  photograph  or  wash  drawing  to 
be  reproduced  by  half-tone?  These  questions  are 
among  the  hardest  to  decide  in  advertising. 

Good  "  copy  "  is  the  desire  of  all  advertisers,  but 
306 


STYLES  OF  ADVERTISING 


307 


what  is  good  "  copy  "  ? 


Of  course,  good 


«  copy  " 


"  copy  "  that  has  sold  goods,  but  it  is  not  easy  to  tell 
in  advance  just  what  "  copy  "  will  sell  goods. 

An  advertiser  naturally  does  not  wish  to  do  the 
same  thing  that  some  other 
advertiser  has  done,  even 
when  it  has  proved  suc- 
cessful. An  imitation  of 
another  man's  work  is  apt 
to  react,  and  it  is  by  no 
means  a  settled  fact  that 
the  same  methods  applied 
to  another  business  will 
succeed.  On  the  contrary, 
that  very  fact  often  leads 
to  failure. 

The  attempt  to  utilize, 
for  instance,  the  names 
and  ideas  accepted  by  the 
National  Biscuit  Company 
has  resulted  disastrously 
to  a  number  of  concerns. 
The  imitation  of  the 
coined  word  "  Uneeda " 
has  been  slavish,  unreasonable,  short-sighted  and 
stupid.  No  advertising  which  has  been  a  palpable 
imitation  of  the  National  Biscuit  advertising  has 
reached  any  measure  of  success  whatever. 

In  this  chapter  will  be  shown  what  a  number  of 
large  and  successful  advertisers  have  considered  good 
"  copy,"  and  which  the  results  have  justified. 

Plain  type,  especially  when  set  with  the  skill  and 
taste  in  display  that  is  being  shown  to-day,  produces 


Pears' 

My  grandmother 
used  Pears'  Soap; 
perhaps  yours  did. 
too.  We  owe  them 
gratitude  for  that. 

Use  Pears'  for 
the  children;  they 
soon  acquire  the 
habit. 


Established  in  1789. 

AN   ADVERTISEMENT   IN  TYPE 
ONLY. 


What  I  know  abovt  Coffee 


Not  very  much;  but  more  than  I  did  in  November.  Americans 
should  know  coffee  ;  and  they  do,  in  a  way.  It  is  America's  national 
beverage  just  as  tea  (except  at  dinner)  is  the  national  beverage  of  Eng- 
land, wine  of  France,  and  beer  of  Germany.  Nothing  short  of  the 
very  best  should  satisfy  us.  \Ve  have  been  drinking  miserably  bad 
coffee ;  not  all  of  us,  but  you  and  I  and  the  people  we  know.  It  isn't 
our  fault.  We  couldn't  get  anything  else.  We  blamed  it  on  the  cook, 
when  all  the  time  we  were  buying  South  American  "  Mocha  and  Java" 
so  green,  even  after  roasting,  that  we  could  squeeze  the  acid  out  of  it. 
It  was  the  best  the  market  offered.  It  is  a  well-known  fact  among 
coffee  connoisseurs  that,  with  coffee  as  with  wine,  age  greatly  im- 
proves the  flavor.  The  excess  of  acid  in  green  coffee  gives  the  coffee 
a  bitter  taste  and  is  very  injurious  to  people  of  rheumatic  tendency. 
Practically  all  cheap  coffees  are  green  coffees.  Seasoned  coffees  can't 
be  bought  for  the  price.  There  never  was  a  time  when  a  guaranteed 
pure  coffee  of  high  grade  had  so  big  an  opportunity  for  success,  and 
if  there  is  anything  better  grown  than  the  Tabard  Inn  Coffee 
expert  knowledge  and  money  have  been  unable  to  locate  it.  Our 
Yeoman's  Blend  (5oc. )  is  made  up  of  five  coffees  but  largely  Java 
and  Mocha:  the  Java  imported  through  Holland  from  the  Island  of 
Java;  the  Mocha,  the  genuine  Arabian  bean,  shipped  direct  from  the 
port  of  Aden.  The  Mocha  used  in  this  and  in  the  Squire 's  Blend  (6oc.) 
is  the  nearest  approach  to  the  genuine  and  famous  Yemen  that  it  is 
possible  to  buy.  The  Friar's  Blend  (4OC.)  has  a  small  percentage  of 
the  best  Bogota  blended  with  other  superior  coffees.  In  all  three 
coffees  we  aim  to  secure  the  pick  of  the  oldest  crop  without  regard 
to  cost.  The  success  of  Tabard  Inn  Coffees  over  all  other 
coffees  will  be  due  in  part  to  the  blending.  These  coffees  are  bought 
and  blended  by  a  man  who  is  acknowledged  by  the  coffee  trade  to  be 
the  best  coffee  expert  and  coffee  blender  in  the  United  States.  I  am 
convinced  that  nothing  so  rich  in  flavor,  so  exhilarating  in  quality  and 
so  generally  healthful  as  a  mild  stimulant  has  ever  before  been  offered 
as  a  coffee  beverage.  These  coffees  are  worth  the  money.  They  are 
cheaper  in  the  long  run  than  cheap  coffees.  A  pound  will  go  farther. 
We  do  not  hope  to  secure  the  custom  of  people  who  economize  on 
foods  and  who  spend  on  medicines  ten  times  the  amount  saved.  The 
difference  between  good  coffee  and  bad  coffee  is  suiely  worth  ten 
cents  a  week.  The  difference  is  just  as  great  as  between  good  and 
bad  of  anything  else;  butter,  for  instance,  or  meat  or  bread.  Ask 
your  grocer  to  send  you  a  sample  pound.  The  proof  of  the  pudding 
is  the  eating  of  it. 


—   —          ™     —i 

THIS  NEWSPAPER  ADVERTISEMENT  OF  COFFEE  IS  A  GOOD  EX- 
AMPLE OF  THE  NARRATIVE  STYLE  OF  COPY,  WHICH  IS  BOTH 
INTERESTING  AND  CONVINCING,  AND  WHICH  ILLUSTRATES 
THE  THEORY  OF  SEYMOUR  EATON  THAT  "ADVERTISING  IS 
NEWS." 

308 


STYLES  OF  ADVERTISING  309 

some  very  successful  advertising.  Especially  in  the 
magazines,  where  the  tendency  is  to  run  largely  to 
designs,  does  a  simple  type  advertisement  stand 
out  well. 

For  instance,  several  reproductions  are  shown  of 
the  Murphy  Varnish  advertisements.  These  repre- 
sent the  best  we  have  in  type  display.  They  go  back 
to  the  typesetting  of  the  masters  of  the  printing  art 
in  the  sixteenth  century.  They  are  set  in  a  type  face 
which  is  among  the  earliest  that  was  designed  and 
cut,  but  among  the  best  we  have  to-day.  No  amount 
of  display,  and  especially  display  using  different  faces 
of  type,  can  compete  in  vigorous  strength  with  these 
apparently  simple  advertisements. 

They  are  also  reproduced  to  illustrate  a  style  of 
advertising  talk  which,  when  well  done,  is  very  effec- 
tive. These  advertisements  are  the  work  of  John  O. 
Powers,  the  elder,  who  is  a  master  of  vigorous  and 
epigrammatic  English,  and  whose  advertising  always 
suggests  in  the  mind  of  the  reader  a  desirable  train 
of  thought.  They  are  further  interesting  because  they 
advertise  varnish  to  the  consumer,  not  with  the  idea 
that  the  consumer  should  buy  the  varnish  itself,  but 
to  interest  him  in  varnish  so  that  in  purchasing  any 
article,  such  as  a  carriage  or  piano,  he  would  be 
particular  as  to  the  sort  of  varnish  which  was  used 
upon  it. 

The  advertisement  of  "  Taylor  Old  Style  "  roof- 
ing-tin is  an  example  of  more  recent  type  display, 
having  some  qualities  in  common  with  the  Murphy 
Varnish  advertisements. 

A  variation  of  type  display  is  produced  by  a  spe- 
cially designed  letter.  This  has  been  done  a  number 


HALF  VALUE  IN  VARNISH 
IS  NO  VALUE. 

A  clipped  and  worn  piece  of  gold  is 
still  worth  its  weight.  Half  a  box  of 
berries  is  worth  half  the  price.  A  horse 
that  will  not  do  for  the  carriage  may 
still  do  for  the  dray.  But:  — 

If  the  lens  of  a  telescope  is  not  prac- 
tically perfect,  it  is  good  for  nothing. 
If  a  watch  spring  contains  but  a  micro- 
scopic flaw,  it  is  useless. 

Varnish  that  is  not  first-class  must  be 
classed  as  worthless  for  ANY  FINE 
WORK.  The  slightest  flaw  in  its  com- 
position will  cause  it  to  crack,  or  peel, 
or  dry  out,  or  discolor,  or  do  something 
that  spoils  its  usefulness. 

Really  fine  varnish  is  only  made  by 
experts,  and  it  is  not  found  on  the 
bargain  counter. 

MURPHY  VARNISH  Co. 

Head  Office:    Newark,  N.  J. 

Other  Offices  :    Boston,  Cleveland,  St.  Louis,  and  Chicago. 

Factories :    Newark  and  Chicago. 

ONE  OF  A  SERIES  OF  MAGAZINE  ADVERTISEMENTS  IN  WHICH  A 
SIMPLE  TYPE  STYLE  AND  VERY  CONVINCING  "  COPY "  MAKE 
AN  EXCELLENT  SUBSTITUTE  FOR  DESIGN  OR  PICTURES. 

310 


STYLES  OF  ADVERTISING 


311 


of  times  with  success.  The  advertising  of  the  Pabst 
Brewing  Company,  which  has  appeared  in  the  mag- 
azines for  a  year  or  so,  was  based  upon  a  letter  de- 
signed for  the  purpose.  This  letter  was  so  happy 
in  its  proportions 

that  it  has  since         Amid    all    discussion    of 
been  cut  and  cast    tne  best  roofing  material,  the 
by  type-founders,     ^     remains    ^     «T     , 
and   can   now   be  ' 

had  in  a  regular    Old    Style"   roofing  tin  has 

type.  A  half -page  endured    upon    roofs    for  at 

magazine  adver-  least  sixty-three  years— how 
tisement  lettered  ,  ,  ,  , 

in    Pabst   Old  much  longer  we  do  not  know. 

Style  with  only  What  other  kind  of  roofing 
the  trade-mark  tin  or  other  material  has 
for  display  is  lasted  SO  long? 

shown  as  an  ex- 
ample of  strong, 
simple,  masterful 
display. 

There  are  still 
appearing  in  the 
magazines  a  great 
many  advertise- 
ments consisting 

altogether  of  type,  which  are  not  pleasing  to  the  eye, 
but  which  are  very  effective.  This  is  especially  true 
in  what  is  known  as  "  mail-order  "  advertising.  In 
the  chapter  of  the  book  devoted  to  that  subject  is 
reproduced  a  typical  mail-order  advertisement  set  in 
small  type  most  solidly.  People  who  are  going  to 
send  money  for  an  article  in  direct  response  to  mail- 


N.  &  G.  TAYLOR  COMPANY 

ESTABLISHED  l8lO 

Philadelphia 

Don't  economize  ten  dollars  on  the  roof  because  no  one  cao 
•ee  it.  and  spend  a  thousand  dollars  on  interior  decorations  which 
simply  appeal  to  the  eye. 

Our  "  Guide  to  Good  Roofs,"  sent  free  on  request,  gives  some 
good  pointers  on  the  roofing  question. 

REASONS  AND  TYPE  TO  TAKE  THE 
PLACE  OF  DESIGNS. 


THE   COST   OF    IT. 

In  a  board  walk  the  largest  item  of  ex- 
pense is  the  lumber:  in  a  splendid  violin 
the  least  item  of  expense  is  the  lumber. 
In  a  plain  wall  the  stone  is  the  chief  cost: 
in  a  piece  of  classic  statuary  the  cost  of 
the  stone  is  hardly  reckoned. 

This  principle,  in  a  certain  degree,  ap- 
plies to  the  making  of  fine  varnish.  We 
do  not  pretend  that  we  put  from  two  to 
five  dollars'  worth  of  material  into  each 
liquid  gallon;  but  we  do  put  in  the  scien- 
tific knowledge  and  the  expert  skill  and 
the  long-continued  care  which  no  ordinary 
varnish  contains. 

If  you  wish  to  get  rich  music  or  a 
treasure  of  the  sculptor's  art  or  a  job  of 
varnishing  that  will  be  satisfactory,  you 
must  pay  for  something  else  than  raw 
material.  MURPHY  VARNISH  Co. 

Head  Office:    Newark,  N.  J. 

Other  Offices:    Boston,  Cleveland,  St.  Louis,  and  Chicago. 

Factories:    Newark  and  Chicago. 

ANOTHER   EXAMPLE   OF  THE    POWERS   STYLE.      THIS   WRITER 
NEVER   USES   DESIGNS   OR   ILLUSTRATIONS. 


STYLES  OF  ADVERTISING 


313 


order  advertising,  wish  as 
full  a  description  as  possi- 
ble, and  bad  as  these  adver- 
tisements are  from  the  point  • 
of  view  of  general  public- 
ity, they  are  very  successful 
in  securing  actual  orders. 
Apparently  they  appeal  to 
a  different  class  of  people. 

As  an  example  of  type 
display  in  this  mail-order 
style  is  reproduced  the  ad- 
vertisement of  the  1900 
Washing  Machine,  which, 
despite  a  ridiculous  old- 
fashioned  wood-cut  and  its 
solid  type  matter,  gave  a 
vivid  impression  of  the 
washing  machine. 

In  an  advertising  de- 
sign seeking  to  attract  at- 
tention the  border  idea  is  a 
simple  and  effective  method. 
An  excellent  example  of 
this  is  the  page  of  the  Dei- 
mel  Linen  Mesh  Company. 

Photographs  are  being 
more  and  more  extensively 
used  in  magazine  adverti- 
sing, despite  the  disadvan- 
tages from  the  poor  paper 
and  rapid  printing  used  in 
the  advertising  pages  of  the 


BACKED 

by  sixty  years 
of  practical 
experience. 

Pabst 
Beer 

is  tbe  purev 
healthful  blend* 
ing  of  choicest 
hops  and  fin* 
est  barley  uns 
der  scientifi* 
cally  perfect 
conditions. 


TYPE    STYLE    INVENTED    BY 
AN  ADVERTISER, 


Let  this  Machine  do  your  Washing  Free. 

There  are  Motor-Springs  beneath  the  tub. 

These  springs  do  nearly  all  the  hard  work,  when  once  you  start  them  going 
And  this  washing  machine  works  as  easy  as  a  bicycle  wheel  does. 

There  are  slats  on  the  inside  bottom  of  the  tub. 

These  slats  act  as  paddles,  to  swing  the  water  in  the  same  direction  you  re 
volve  the  tub. 

You  throw  the  soiled  clothes  into  the  tub  flrst.  Then  you  throw  enough 
water  over  the  clothes  to  float  them. 

Next  you  put  the  heavy  wooden  cover  on  top  of  the  clothes  to  anchor  them, 
and  to  press  them  down. 

This  cover  has  slats  on  Its  lower  side  to  grip  the  clothes  and  hold  them  from 
turning  around  when  the  tub  turns. 

Now,  we  are  all  ready  for  quick  and  easy  washing. 

You  grasp  the  upright  handle  on  the  "side  of  the  tub  and,  with  it.  you  revolve 
the  tub  one-third  way  round,  till  it  strikes  a  motor-spring. 

This  motor-spring  throws  the  tub  back  till  it  strikes  the  other  motor-spring, 
which  in  turn  throws  it  back  on  the  flrst  motor-spring. 

The  machine  must  have  a  little  help  from  you,  at  every  swing,  but  the  motor- 
springs,  and  the  ball-bearings,  do  practically  all  the  hard  work. 

You  can  sit  in  a  rocking  chair  and  do  all  that  the  washer  requires  of  you.  A 
child  can  run  it  easily  full  of  clothes. 

*  *  *  *  * 

When  you  revolve  the  tub  the  clothes  don't  move.  But  the  water  moves  like 
a  mill  race  through  the  clothes. 

The  paddles  on  the  tub  bottom  drive  the  soapy  water  THROUGH  and  through 
the  clothes  at  every  swing  of  the  tub.  Back  and  forth,  in  and  out  of  every  fold, 
and  through  every  mesh  in  the  cloth,  the  hot  soapy  water  runs  like  a  torrent. 
This  is  how  it  carries  away  all  the  dirt  from  the  clothes,  in  from  six  to  ten 
minutes  by  the  clock. 

ITilrives  the  dirt  out  through  the  meshes  of  the  fabrics  WITHOUT  ANY 
RUBBING,— without  any  WEAR  and  TEAR  from  the  washboard. 

It  will  wash  the  finest  lace  fabric  without  breaking  a  thread,  or  a  button,  and 
It  will  wash  a  heavy,  dirty  carpet  with  equal  case  and  rapidity.  Fifteen  to 
twenty  garments,  or  five  large  bed-sheets,  can  be  washed  at  one  time  with  this 
"  1900  "  Washer. 

A  child  can  do  this  in  six  to  twelve  minutos  better  than  any  able  washer- 
woman could  do  the  r,ame  clothes  in  TWICE  the  time,  with  three  times  the  wear 
and  tear  from  the  washboard. 

*  *  *  *  * 
This  is  what  we  SAY,  now  how  do  we  PROVE  it? 

We  send  you  our  "  1900  "  Washer  ?ree  of  charge,  on  a  full  month's  trial,  and 
we  even  pay  the  freight  out  of  our  own  pockets. 

No  cash  deposit  is  asked,  no  notes,  no  contract;  no  security.  You  may  use 
the  washer  for  weeks  at  our  expense.  If  you  find  la  won't  wash  as  many  clotEes 
in  FOUR  hours  as  you  can  wash  by  hand  in  EIGHT  hours  you  send  it  back  to 
the  railway  station,— that's  all. 

But,  if,  from  a  month's  actual  use,  you  are  convinced  it  saves  HALF  the  time 
in  washing,  does  the  work  better,  and  does  it  twice  as  easily  ac  it  could  be  done 
by  hand,  you  keep  the  machine. 

T'wn  you  mail  us  50  cents  a  %veek  till  it  is  paid  for. 

Remember  ihat  50  cents  is  part  of  whr.t  the  machine  Saves  you  every  week  on 
your  ov/n,  or  on  a  washer-woman's  labor.  We  intend  laat  tne  "  1900  "  Washer 
shall  pay  for  itself  and  thus  cost  you  nothing. 

You  don't  risk  a  cent  from  first  to  last,  and  you  don't  buy  it  until  you  have 
had  a  full  month's  trial. 

Could  we  afford  to  pay  freight  on  thousands  of  these  machines  every  month, 
if  we  did  not  positively  KNOW  they  would  do  all  we  claim  for  them  ?  Can  you 
afford  to  be  without  a  machine  that  will  do  your  washing  in  HALF  THE  TlMEI 
with  half  the  wear  and  tear  of  the  washboard,  when  you  can  have  that  machine 
for  a  month's  free  trial,  and  let  it  PAY  FOR  ITSELF  ?  This  offer  may  be  with- 
drawn at  any  time  it  overcrowds  our  factory. 

Write  us  TO-DAY,  while  the  offer  is  still  open,  and  while  you  think  of  it.  The 
postage  stamp  is  all  you  risk.  Write  me  personally  on  this  offer,  viz.:  R.  F. 
Bieber,  General  Manager  of  "  1900  "  Washer  Company,  237  Henry  St.,  Bingham- 
ton,  New  York. 

314 


STYLES  OF  ADVERTISING 


315 


magazines.  For  newspaper  work  photographs  and 
half-tones  are  practically  barred.  Line  drawings  are 
best.  The  newspaper  advertisement  of  Force,  which 
is  one  of  the  Sunny  Jim  series,  given  elsewhere,  is  a 
good  example  of  newspaper  designing  which  is  bound 
to  print  well  in  almost  any  newspaper. 

Some  years  ago  Ivory  Soap  ran  a  series  of  maga- 


drawings  with  type  mat- 
ter. These  were  used  in 
the  magazines,  but  were 
also  used  in  newspapers 
and  other  publications 
where  the  printing  would 
otherwise  be  bad.  Excel- 
lent results  were  secured, 
and  they  still  remain  a 
splendid  kind  of  designing 
for  advertising.  Two  ex- 
amples have  been  repro- 
duced. 


Absolutely  Pure 
HAS  MO  SUBSTITUTE 


USED   FOR   YEARS   WITHOUT 
CHANGE. 


There  still  survive  in 
magazines  and  newspapers 
some  of  the  advertisements  that  were  prepared  many 
years  ago,  consisting  almost  altogether  of  the  name 
of  the  article  displayed,  and  which  may  still  be  con- 
sidered successful  advertising  as  far  as  mere  publicity 
goes.  Among  these  is  the  well-known  arrangement 
of  Royal  Baking  Powder  which  appears  as  a  quarter 
page  on  the  back  of  a  great  many  magazines. 

The  comments  printed  under  the  reproductions 
given  in  this  chapter  supply  further  examples  of  the 


W" 


INTER  is  coming,  and  with  it  the  ever-increasing  dread 
of  pneumonia.  To  wear  woolen  underwear  is  but 
an  urgent  invitation  for  colds  and  pneumonia  to  enter. 

Underwear  is  often  called  "body  linens."  Linen  ab- 
sorbs— towels  are  made  of  it — it  dries  rapidly — is  known  for 
its  cleanliness,  but  ordinarily  it  is  cold  and  clammy. 

In  the  Dr.Deimel  Underwear  the  coldness  has  been  taken 
out  of  linen.  By  a  special  process  of  manufacture  a  soft,  warm 
and  porous  fabric  has  been  evolved,  called  Linen-Mesh  (a  word 
registered  by  Dr.  Deimel  in  1894,  but  now  used  by  others 
indiscriminately).  Since  its  introduction  ten  years  ago,  the 
Dr.  Deimel  Linen-Mesh  Underwear  has  received  the  most 
friendly  and  grateful  appreciation  throughout  the  world. 

All  who  are  subject  to  colds  and  rheumatism,  or  threatened 
with  bronchitis  or  pneumonia,  will  observe  an  immediate 
change  for  the  better  by  adopting  the  Dr.  Deimel  Underwear. 

SEND  FOR  FREE  BOOKLET,  GIVING  VALUABLE  AND    IN- 
TERESTING INFORMATION   ON  THE    UNDERWEAR  QUESTION. 


The  Deimel  Linen-Mesh  Co.,  491  Broadway,  N.  Y. 

SAN  FRANCISCO*  MONTREAL:  LONDON: 

111  Montgomery  St.  2202  St.  Catherine  St        83  Strand.  Hotel  Cecil, W.C 


THE   FIRST  STEP   PROM   A   TYPE   STYLE    IS   THE   USE    OF   A   BORDER. 


STYLES  OF  ADVERTISING  317 

range  of  ideas  in  advertising,  which  it  is  impossible 
to  classify. 

Of  late  years  there  has  been  a  certain  tendency 
to  introduce  a  character  in  the  advertising  which  shall 
be  used  regularly,  and  which  soon  becomes  a  sort  of 
trade-mark.  One  of  the  commonest  variations  of  this 
is  the  portrait  of  the  advertiser  himself.  A  famous 
instance  is  that  of  W.  L.  Douglass,  manufacturer  of 
the  Douglass  shoe,  now  governor  of  Massachusetts, 
whose  picture  is  probably  one  of  the  best  known  in 
advertising  in  the  world.  Mennen,  the  manufacturer 
of  Mennen's  Talcum  Powder,  is  another  instance. 
Ostrander,  who  has  built  up  a  system  of  selling  real 
estate  by  mail,  is  an  advertiser  whose  face  is  present- 
in  all  magazines. 

The  introduction  of  a  fictitious  character,  of  which 
Sunny  Jim  is  an  example,  has  had  a  wide  vogue. 
Sunny  Jim  has  been  discussed  in  various  aspects  in 
different  parts  of  the  book.  The  breakfast-food  ad- 
vertisers seem  particularly  partial  to  this  form  of 
publicity.  The  reader  will  recall  many  instances, 
such  as  that  of  the  colored  chef  for  Cream  of  Wheat, 
the  Ralston  Miller,  and  the  Quaker  of  Quaker  Oats. 

Two  styles  cut  from  the  earliest  numbers  of  "f he 
Century  Magazine  illustrate  early  advertisements  of 
a  dentifrice  and  a  corset.  The  dentifrice  is  repre- 
sented by  Sozodont,  and  the  corset  by  Thomson's 
Glove-Fitting  Corset.  JBy  way  of  contrast,  and  as 
showing  the  use  of  photography  in  modern  adverti- 
sing, a  modern  advertisement  of  a  tooth  preparation 
and  of  a  corset  are  shown. 

The  use  of  versified  forms  in  advertising  seems 
more  honored  in  the  breach  than  in  the  observance, 


Women  with  long,  thick  hair  find  it  difficult  to  keep  it  in  proper 
order  without  too  frequent  washing,  which  renders  it  dry  and  harsh. 
The  following  method  is  effectual  and  need  only  be  repeated  once 
in  two  months,  if  the  hair  is  well  brushed  each  night. 

Beat  the  white  of  an  egg  sufficiently  to  break  it,  rub  this  well 
into  the  scalp.  Wash  it  off  thoroughly  with  Ivory  Soap  and  warm 
water,  rinse  off  the  soap  and  when  the  hair  is  dry  it  will  be  found 
soft  and  glossy.  Ordinary  soaps  are  too  strong,  use  only  the  Ivory 
Soap. 

C.  16  COPYRIGHT  1893,  BY  THE  PROCTER  &  GAMBLE  Co. 

A   STYLE    OF    DESIGNING    ESPECIALLY   ADAPTED    TO    NEWSPAPERS 
AND    POORLY   PRINTED    MAGAZINES. 


STYLES  OF  ADVERTISING 

:ol  $  lot  "••'    ;o; tot    ....to 

'&  MOUTH! 


319 


<>: ;o:        ;o;     •    :o!#lo: :o: :o: .^o 

iSS^SfJtJSSi^y^l 

ARE  COMMUNICATED  TO  THE  MOUTH  BY 

SOZODOIMT. 

which   renders  the  teeth  WHITE,  the  gums  ROSY 
and  the  breath  SWE>.T.    It  thoroughly  removes 
tartar  from  the  teeth  and  prevents  decay. 
SOLD  BY  DRUGGISTS. 

NOT  SO  ARTISTIC  AS  TO-DAY'S  DESIGNING,  BUT  WITH  GOOD 
PRINTING   QUALITIES   NEVERTHELESS. 

and  the  breaches  are  often  very  ragged.    The  few  good 
jingles  which  have  appeared  as  advertising  seem  to 
furnish  a  justification  for  an  immense  amount  of  bad 
22 


320 


MODERN  ADVERTISING 


AS   IT  IS   DONE   TO-DAY 


and  indifferent  kinds, 
and  it  is  not  even  proved 
that  the  good  verse  is 
good  advertising.  But 
then,  for  that  matter, 
neither  is  it  proved  that 
the  bad  verse  is  bad  ad- 
vertising. 

Of  course,  the  ad- 
vertiser has  a  certain 
justification  in  wanting 
to  put  what  he  has  to 
say  in  metrical  form. 
It  is  easier  to  make  peo- 
ple remember  things 
that  have  rhythm  and 
rhyme.  Children  used 
to  learn  the  names  of  the 
queens  of  England  in 
rhyme  and  in  the  same 
way  commit  to  memory 
the  prepositions  which 
took  the  dative  case  in 
Latin.  Rhythm  as  an 
aid  to  memory  is  as  old 
as  the  ballad  singers. 
Metrical  forms  came 
before  prose  forms,  and 
all  history  was  once 
verse.  Therefore,  it 
seems  logical  to  insist 
L.,  that  any  advertiser  who 
has  something  to  say 


Keep  a  cake  of  Ivory  Soap  at  the  stable,  it  is  most  excellent 
for  washing  galled  spots  and  scratches  on  horses,  for  it  will  cleanse 
without  irritating,  and  the  vegetable  oils  of  which  it  is  made  are 
cooling  and  healing  in  effect. 

A  WORD  OF  WARNING. 

There  are  many  white  soaps,  each  represented  to  be  "  just  as  good  as  the  '  Ivory* ;  9 
they  ARE  NOT,  but  like  all  counterfeits,  lack  the  peculiar  and  remarkable  qualities 
of  the  genuine.  Ask  for  "  Ivory  "  Soap  and  insist  upon  getting  it. 

R.&  COrVRIGHT  I8fl3.  BY  TH«  PROCTM  &  GAMBL»  Cft, 

CLEAN,   OPEN    CUTS,    WHICH    CAN    NOT  FILL  UP  AND   BLOT,    HOW- 
EVER RAPID  THE   PRESSWORK  OR  POOR  THE   PAPER 


322  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

that  he  wishes  the  people  to  remember,  can  catch  their 
attention  and  hold  their  memory  with  some  statement 
that  swings  along  in  a  rhythmic  and  jingling  way. 


ARE    STILL   TRIUMPHANT! 

For  fifteen  years  they  have  steadily  gained  in  favor,  and  with 
sales  constantly  increasing  have  become  the  most  popular  Corset 
throughout  the  United  States. 

^  The  "  G  "  quality  is  -warranted to  wear  twice  as  long  as  ordinary 
Corsets,  and  testimonials  without  number  could  be  given  of  the 
perfect  satisfaction  they  have  afforded  for  a  long  series  of  years. 

While  scores  of  patents  have  been  found  worthless,  the principles 
of  the  Glove- Fitting  have7  proved  invaluable. 

Retailers  are  authorized  to  refund  money,  if  on  examination  these 
\,orsets  do  not  prove  as  represented. 

For  sale  everywhere. 

Catalogue  free  on  application. 

THOMSON,  LANGDON  &  CO.  Mfrs. 
70  and  72  Worth  Street,  N.  Y« 

AN  EARLY  EXAMPLE   OF   CORSET  ADVERTISING. 


Two  or  three  people  have  done  this  sort  of  thing 
so  well  that  their  Avork  is  now  taken  as  a  kind 
of  standard  for  verse  advertising.  For  instance, 


W.L.  DOUGLAS 

$3.5S  SHOES 

AMERICA     LEADS     THE    SHOE     FASHIONS    OF    THE    WORLD. 

f*^j^=>  The  Leading  Styles  Originate  in  BrocKton.  the  Man«-  «^fr^ln 
US!;?  facturing  Centre  of  Men's  Fine  Shoes  in  This  Country.  C3C5I 
Styles  Originated  by  My  Expert  Model  Mailer  Are  Copied  Everywhere. 

W.  L.  Douglas  $3.50  slices  have  by  their  excellent  style,  easy-fitting  and  superior  wearing  qualities, 
achieved  the  largest  sale  of  any  $3.50  shoe  in  the  world.  They  are  just  as  good  as  those  that  cost 
you  $5  to  $7  —  the  only  difference  is  the  price.  If  I  could  take  you  into  my  factory  at  Brockton,  Mass., 
the  largest  in  the  world  under  one  roof  making  men's  fine  shoes,  and  show  you  the  infinite  care  with 
which  every  pair  of  Douglas  shoes  is  mad**  you  would  realize  why  W.  L.  Douglas  $3^0  shoes  are 
the  best  shoes  produced  anywhere. 

If  I  could  show  you  (he  difference  between  the  shoes  made  in  my  factory  and  those  of  other  makes, 
you  would  understand  why  Douglas  $3.50  shoes  cost  more  to  make,  why  they  hold  their  shape,  fit 
better,  wear  longer,  and  are  of  greater  intrinsic  value  than  any  other  $3,50  shoe  on  the  market  to-day. 

There  is  a  great  difference  between  wholesale  and  retail  prices  in  shoes.  You  pay  only  one  profit 
on  shoes  made  in  my  factory  and  sold  direct  to  you  through  my  own  stores  in  the  principal  cities. 
The  result  is,  you  get  better  shoes  for  the  price  than  are  retailed  elsewhere. 

My  Own  Secret  Process  of  Tanning  the   Bottom   Sole»  Produces  More 
Flexible  and  Longer  Wearing  Leather  Than  Any  Other  Tannage. 
EVERY  GENTLEMAN  SHOULD   HAVE  THREE  PAIRS  OF 
SHOES  TO  DRESS  HIS  FEET  PROPERLY  ON  ALL  OCCASIONS. 

He  should  have  a  pair  of  Lace  Shoes  for  cold  and  rainy  weathers  a  pair  of  Oxfords  for  warm 


Douglas  uses  Corona  Coltskin  in  his  $,'5. 
shoes.  Corona  Colt  Is  conceded  everywhe 
to  be  the  finest  patent  leather  yet  produce 

fast  Color  {yelets  toud  ttetoatoity. 


W.  l~  DOUGLAS,  147  SparK  ^reeVBrocKton,  Mass. 


ADVERTISEMENT  IDENTIFIED   BY  THE  PORTRAIT  OP  THE 
ADVERTISER. 


324 


MODERN  ADVERTISING 


Mr.  Snyder's  humpbacked  hook-and-eye  verses  hang 
on,  and  Mr.  Fraser's  Spotless  Town  is  a  shining  in- 
stance. These  are  supposably  examples  of  good  jin- 


A  MOgggftU CORSET  ADVERTISEMENT.  THIS  DESIGN  IS  INTENDED 
TO  SHOW  THE  FERRIS  GOOD  SENSE  WAISTS.  IT  IS  MADE 
FROM  THE  ACTUAL  GOODS  UPON  LIVING  MODELS  AND  REP- 
RESENTS AN  EXCEPTIONALLY  REALISTIC  FORM  OF  ADVER- 
TISING. 

gles,  and  they  have  always  been  thought  to  be  good  ad- 
vertising. It  is  impossible  to  tell  whether  they  are  or 
not.  The  Sapolio  people,  for  instance,  can  never  know 
just  how  much  advertising  the  Spotless  Town  added 
to  an  already  large  amount  of  successful  publicity. 


STYLES  OF  ADVERTISING  325 

The  general  advertiser  believes,  however,  that  if 
he  can  set  people  to  talking  about  his  article  by  any 
device,  verse  or  otherwise,  he  has  succeeded  in  build- 
ing up  what  is  called  "  general  publicity."  With  an 
article  like  Sapolio  it  is  only  necessary  to  remember 
the  name  and  its  uses.  A  verse  form,  provided  the 
verse  is  good  enough  to  attract  attention,  ought  to 
attain  this  end. 

The  point  is  that  only  the  rudiments  of  this  idea 
are  seized  by  other  advertisers,  and  the  stuff  produced, 
by  courtesy  called  "  verse/'  has  no  claim  upon  the  at- 
tention or  memory  from  its  jingling  merits,  and  no 
claim  on  the  pocketbook  from  its  advertising  merits. 
It  ought  to  go  without  saying  that  a  verse  advertise- 
ment should  be  an  advertisement  just  as  much  as  a 
prose  advertisement,  and  that  the  points  it  should 
make  should  be  real  points. 

For  instance,  take  the  very  clever  nonsense  verses 
used  in  the  Rubifoam  magazine  advertisements. 
These  were  exceptionally  clever,  and  in  a  nonsense 
book  would  be  good  things  well  done.  They  are  not 
advertising  in  the  remotest  sense  and,  therefore,  how- 
ever good  they  were  as  jingles,  they  could  not  possibly 
add  a  single  kilowatt  of  profitable  publicity  to  the 
Rubifoam  dynamo. 

The  whole  question  resolves  itself  into  the  one 
effort  of  getting  jingles  that  are  good  from  a  jingling 
point  of  view,  and  then  advertisements  that  are  good 
from  an  advertising  point  of  view. 

The  best  way  to  use  verse  is  as  part  of  a  series. 
Some  idea  that  has  certain  narrative  and  sustaining 
qualities  may  be  projected  into  a  series  of  instances 
of  more  or  less  similarity,  so  that  the  public  will  be 


326  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

in  a  position  of  anxiously  watching  for  the  next  ver- 
sion. This  thing  appeals  to  a  very  deeply-laid  trait  in 
human  nature.  It  is  the  trait  to  which  the  popular 
theatrical  song  appeals.  The  popular  song  is  a  series 
of  verses  all  leading  up  to  a  certain  chorus  or  phrase, 
so  that  after  a  verse  or  two  the  audience  begins  to 
expect  some  new  variation  or  version  of  the  same  idea. 
When  the  successful  singer  is  called  back  it  is  in  order 
that  he  may  gratify  their  curiosity  as  to  another  feat 
of  verbal  gymnastics. 

The  colored  supplements  of  the  Sunday  papers 
carry  out  the  same  idea,  and  all  that  muster-roll  of 
worthies,  beginning  with  the  Yellow  Kid  and  coming 
down  to  Foxy  Grandpa,  the  Katzenjammer  Kids, 
Buster  Brown  and  the  rest  of  them,  appeals  to  this 
same  trait. 

Therefore,  if  one  can  put  in  verse  form  actual 
advertising  ideas — actual  facts  about  the  goods — and 
awaken  an  interest  which  will  hang  on  and  linger 
around  and  wait  expectantly  for  the  next  "  stunt," 
and  if  one  can  make  this  verse  good  from  the  point 
of  view  of  ordinary  rhythmic  rules,  the  chances  are 
that  this  will  be  good  advertising. 

It  is  astonishing,  however,  that  so  much  of  this 
advertising  verse  is  neither  good  verse  nor  good  adver- 
tising. It  would  seem  that  the  would-be  author,  after 
ignoring  every  rule  of  rhythm,  rhyme,  grammar  and 
construction,  would  certainly  be  able  to  make  at  least 
a  straightforward  statement  about  his  goods,  but  he 
fails  even  to  do  that. 

In  preparing  the  jingles  for  the  Jim  Dumps'  se- 
ries, advertising  "  Force,"  the  work  of  a  great  many 
writers  was  used.  The  most  difficult  thing  was  to  get 


STYLES  OF  ADVERTISING  327 

jingles  which  were  advertisements.  It  was  possible 
to  get  some  very  good  ones  and  some  exceedingly 
clever  ones,  but  when  all  were  thrown  out  which  were 
not  actual  advertising,  the  net  result  was  rather  small. 
The  idea  of  these  jingles  in  every  case  has  been 
an  actual  instance  of  the  result  of  eating  "  Force." 
The  transformation  of  Jim  Dumps  into  Sunny  Jim 
was  brought  about  by  an  actual  result  of  the  eating 
of  "  Force,"  and  no  jingle  celebrates  anything  else 
but  an  actual  result.  For  instance,  here  is  a  typical 
jingle : 

"  Jim  Dumps/'  with  scowling  visage  said, 
"  I'm  hungry  when  I  go  to  bed." 
"  Then,"  quoth  his  doctor,  "  'Twould  be  best 
To  take,  ere  you  retire  to  rest, 
A  bowl  of  Force."    From  visage  grim, 
He  now  is  changed  to  "  Sunny  Jim." 

This  could  happen  in  any  home  where  "  Force  " 
was  eaten.  It  is  a  use  of  "  Force  "  that  the  manu- 
facturers would  be  glad  to  suggest  and  encourage,  be- 
cause it  is  true  and  helpful.  It  is  a  jingle  that  is  an 
advertisement. 

On  the  other  hand,  here  is  one  that  was  sent  in 
which  was  clever  and  ingenious  and  metrically  con- 
structed and  kept  the  general  form  of  the  other  jin- 
gles, but  it  was  far-fetched.  It  was  not  something 
that  could  be  caused  by  eating  "  Force."  It  was  tak- 
ing liberties  with  the  idea,  and  what  is  more,  it  wasn't 
necessary : 

"  Jim  Dumps  "  is  always  in  demand 
Whenever  there's  a  dance  on  hand. 
He  never  seems  to  want  to  stop, 
But  says  that  "  while  there's  life  there's  hop!* 


328  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

His  course  of  "  Force  "  gives  him  this  vim  : 
"  On  with  the  dance!  "  cries  "  Sunny  Jim." 

Just  as  soon  as  there  seem  to  be  no  more  good 
arguments  to  be  expressed  in  verse  form,  then  a  series 
had  better  stop. 

The  only  idea  of  using  verse  is  to  get  a  good  ve- 
hicle for  conveying  facts  about  the  goods  advertised 
to  the  public.  When  the  vehicle  gets  more  important 
than  its  contents,  it  should  be  abandoned.  When  the 
necessity  of  rhyme  and  meter  causes  facts  to  be  dis- 
torted, then  that  medium  of  expression  should  be 
abandoned  and  plain  prose  used,  but  a  good  many 
advertisers  seem  to  think  that  verse  in  itself  is  good 
advertising,  and  that  it  makes  no  difference  what  is 
said  just  so  it  is  cast  in  jingle  form,  and  then  believ- 
ing that,  they  do  not  even  go  so  far  as  to  get  good 
jingles,  to  say  nothing  of  getting  good  advertisements. 

It  is  astonishing  how  strongly  the  verse  idea  ap- 
peals to  the  average  advertiser.  Whether  it  is  because 
they  have  some  superstition  working  in  their  minds 
about  verse  in  itself,  or  because  they  attribute  the  suc- 
cess of  well-advertised  products  to  the  use  of  verse, 
one  can  not  even  guess,  but  there  are  many  people 
who  insist  upon  some  verse  idea  in  their  advertise- 
ments, with  most  baneful  results. 

The  H-O  Company  are  using  jingles  in  connec- 
tion with  little  silhouettes  in  all  packages  of  H-O  to 
advertise  some  of  their  by-products  with  what  might 
be  considered  very  good  effect.  These  jingles  are 
meant  to  be  catchy  in  the  nursery  sense — that  is,  in 
the  way  that  Mother  Goose  is  catchy.  They  are  in- 
tended to  appeal  to  children  and  to  stamp  the  names 


STYLES  OF  ADVERTISING 


329 


of  products  upon  the  children's  minds.  It  is  the  child 
that  is  sent  to  the  corner  grocery.  If  he  of  his  own 
accord  can  remember  the  name  of  a  pancake  flour  or 
a  buckwheat  flour,  there  are  a  great  many  more 
chances  of  the  advertiser's  selling  his  flour  and  of 
the  grocer's  not  being  able  to  give  him  anything  else, 


SAID  Bess  to  Nan  :  "Our 
Beu-lah  makes 
Noth-mg  bet-ter  than  buck- 
wheat cakes." 
Said  Nan  to  Bess:  "Of  all 

I've  eat-en 

Pan-cakes   have   nev-er   yet 
been  beat-en." 


VUTHEN  Reg-gie  eats  his  grid-die  cakes, 
™    He  eats  them  ver-y  slow-ly ; 
But  Rog-gie  al-ways  gob-bles  his, 

And  al-most  bolts  them  whol-ly. 
They  both  like  H-O  pancakes  best  — 

No  oth-er  kind  can  beat  them, 
They  display  dif-fer-ent  tem-per-a^ment> 

The  way  in  which  they  eat  them. 


JINGLES  AND   SILHOUETTES   USED   FOR   DISTRIBUTION  IN 
PACKAGES. 

and  there  is  no  way  of  so  fully  interesting  a  child's 
mind  in  this  way  as  by  putting  the  names  that  he  has 
to  learn  in  verses  which  he  will  have  read  to  him  and 
will  remember.  It  is  expected  that  these  little  leaflets 
will  be  popular  with  the  children  in  every  household. 
Two  or  three  are  reproduced  here. 

The  same  idea  has  been  used  by  a  bread  company 
in  Buffalo.  The  entire  attempt  has  been  made  to  ap- 
peal to  the  childish  mind.  The  Mother  Goose  idea 
was  taken  as  a  basis.  A  mythical  character  was  cre- 
ated who  was  called  Aunt  Hannah,  and  Aunt  Han- 


330  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

nah's  bread  was  made  the  subject  of  jingles  and 
rhymes  which  have  a  Mother  Goose  flavor. 

Bearing  upon  this  subject  of  jingles  in  adverti- 
sing, the  series  which  has  been  used  for  several  years 
by  the  Lackawanna  Railroad  is  interesting,  if  not 
noteworthy. 

W.  P.  Colton,  the  advertising  manager,  originated 
the  idea  of  a  Girl  in  White  in  connection  with  a 
series  of  rhymes  constructed  on  the  famous  model  of 
"  The  House  that  Jack  Built."  The  original  series 
told  how  the  Girl  in  White  met  a  Man  in  White  upon 
the  Road  of  Anthracite,  and  was  finally  married  by  a 
Bishop  who  happened  to  be  traveling  on  the  same 
train,  who  was  also  clothed  in  white.  This  first  se- 
ries helped  to  christen  the  road  as  the  Road  of  Anthra- 
cite, and  called  attention  to  its  cleanliness. 

Following  this  series,  and  as  a  sort  of  continuation 
of  it,  Phoebe  Snow  as  the  Girl  in  White  was  invented, 
and  for  several  years  she  has  appeared  in  a  series  of 
new  jingles,  advertising  the  Road  of  Anthracite. 

This  series  has  attracted  so  much  attention,  and 
has  resulted  in  so  much  advertising  for  the  road,  that 
perhaps  every  reader  will  recognize  the  one  of 
the  series  of  cards  used  during  1904  which  is  repro- 
duced here. 

The  street-car  cards  were  painted  in  oil  from  liv- 
ing models,  and  a  higher  price  was  paid  for  the  orig- 
inal designs  than  was  ever  paid  for  street-car  cards 
before. 

To  give  an  idea  of  the  way  in  which  the  series  was 
worked  out  and  the  adventures  of  Phoebe  Snow  chron- 
icled through  the  entire  set  of  street-car  cards,  the 
remaining  five  verses  are  given  here: 


STYLES  OF  ADVERTISING 

I 


331 


Miss  Snow  draws  near 

The  cab  to  cheer 

The  level-headed 

Engineer, 

Whose  watchful  sight 

Makes  safe  her  flight/ 

Upon  the  Road 


Lachwanna 
Railroad  . 


ONE   OF  THE    LACKA WANNA    STREET-CAR   CARDS. 


II 

Among  the  crew 

The  flagman  too, 

With  her  safe  trip 

Has  much  to  do. 

His  flag  and  light 

Guide  train  aright 

Upon  the  Road  of  Anthracite. 

IV 

The  wondrous  sight 

Of  mountain  height 

At  Water  Gap 

Brings  such  delight. 

She  must  alight 

To  walk  a  mite 

Beside  the  Road  of  Anthracite. 


Ill 

Miss  Snow  you  see 

Was  sure  to  be 

The  object  of 

Much  courtesy, 

For  day  or  night 

They're  all  polite 

Upon  the  Road  of  Anthracite. 


The  evening  sped, 

Then  Phoebe  said: 

"  It  must  be  time 

To  go  to  bed, 

And  sleep  all  night 

'Twixt  sheets  snow-white 

Upon  the  Road  of  Anthracite.'1 


VI 


Miss  Phoebe's  trip 

Without  a  slip 

Is  almost  o'er. 

Her  trunk  and  grip 

Are  right  and  tight 

Without  a  slight. 

"  Good  bye,  old  Road  of  Anthracite." 


332  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

Noting  the  success  which  the  Girl  in  White  met 
upon  the  street-car  cards,  Mr.  Colton  went  farther  and 
pretty  soon  Phoebe  Snow  was  met  in  the  pages  of  the 
magazines  and  newspapers  as  well  as  upon  bill-boards 
and  painted  signs. 

The  original  Phoebe  Snow,  by  the  way,  was  a 
well-known  artist's  model,  who  has  posed  a  great  deal 
for  advertising,  and  who  was  photographed  upon  the 
trains  of  the  Lackawanna  Road  in  her  white  dress  ex- 
actly as  depicted  upon  the  cards  and  in  the  advertise- 
ments. 

It  is  probable  that  the  Phoebe  Snow  advertise- 
ments comply  as  closely  as  possible  with  the  require- 
ments of  the  jingling  business  announcement,  and  it 
is  believed  by  a  great  many  people  that  this  has  been 
good  advertising  for  the  Lackawanna  Railroad. 

These  are  all  legitimate  uses  of  the  jingles  in 
advertising,  but  even  then  it  is  to  be  doubted  whether 
verse  is  ever  as  good  as  straightforward,  sensible,  in- 
telligible prose. 

The  jingle  in  the  advertisement  is  something 
which  must  be  very  well  done,  indeed,  to  be  good  at 
all,  and  then  it  is  an  open  question  just  how  good  it 
is,  but  the  fact  remains  that  it  must  be  good  and  that 
it  must  be  an  advertisement. 


CHAPTEE  XIII 

SOME    MECHANICAL    DETAILS 

ADVERTISING  has  its  technical  terms  and  mechani- 
cal details.  The  tools  of  the  trade,  as  we  may  call 
them,  begin  with  the  agate  line  measure. 

Practically  all  advertising  is  now  measured  hy 
the  "  agate  "  line,  which  is  one-fourteenth  of  an  inch. 
Strictly,  an  agate  type  body  is  somewhat  larger  than 
one-fourteenth  of  an  inch.  The  modern  agate  type 
body  measures  5^  points  upon  the  point  system,  but 
it  is  not  the  basis  of  measurement,  as  practically  all 
advertisements  when  printed  are  measured  by  the 
fourteen-lines-to-the-inch  advertising  rule.  When  an 
advertisement  is  set  in  5^  point  agate  solid,  without 
any  display,  then  the  actual  number  of  printed  lines 
is  generally  counted,  and  the  advertising  measure 
does  not  apply. 

By  the  point  system  nonpareil  has  become  6 
point;  brevier,  8  point;  pica,  12  point,  and  so  on,  the 
type  bodies  being  exact  multiples  of  a  point,  a  point 
being  1-72  of  an  inch. 

An  agate  line  measures  up  and  down  the  column, 
and  does  not  consider  the  width  of  the  column  at  all. 
It  is  used  for  all  magazine  advertising l  and  for  most 

1  The  Century  Magazine  makes  the  only  important  exception 
to  this  rule.  Instead  of  the  agate  line  it  employs  the  nonpareil 
or  six-point  line. 


334  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

newspaper  advertising.  In  the  case  of  smaller  news- 
papers, space  is  measured  and  paid  for  by  the  inch. 
There  is  a  term  still  used  in  some  newspaper  offices 
called  a  "  square."  A  square  is  an  inch,  single 
column. 

In  marking  the  size  of  an  advertisement,  it  is 
usually  expressed  in  length  together  with  the  number 
of  columns.  For  instance,  8-i  lines,  double  column, 
means  really  168  lines,  occupying  two  adjoining  col- 
umns. This  method  of  indicating  the  size  of  an  ad- 
vertisement is  not  a  fixed  one,  as  sometimes  the  total 
amount  of  space  is  given,  as  168  lines  set  double  col- 
umn. This  is  used  especially  for  newspaper  work 
and  in  the  case  of  magazines  having  large  pages  and 
running  more  than  two  columns  to  the  page.  In  the 
case  of  the  standard  size  magazines,  the  size  of  the 
advertisement  is  indicated  in  pages  and  fractions  of 
a  page,  as,  for  instance,  half  page,  quarter  page  and 
the  like,  anything  smaller  than  an  eighth  of  a  page 
being  indicated  by  the  number  of  lines  occupied. 

The  width  of  columns  varies  greatly,  especially 
among  newspapers.  The  standard  newspaper  column 
is  13  pica  ems  wide  or  2J  inches.  The  columns  of 
a  number  of  papers  are  13J  ems  wide.  Some,  notably 
the  New  York  Tribune,  use  a  15-em  column,  the  prac- 
tise being  borrrowed  probably  from  English  news- 
papers in  which  the  wide  column  is  more  common.  A 
fairly  large  number  of  papers  are  set  in  12|-em  col- 
umns, and  a  few  papers  are  set  in  12-em  columns. 
Some  publications,  especially  trade  papers,  are  set  in 
even  narrower  columns  so  as  to  give  a  small  size  page. 
Trade  papers,  as  a  rule,  are  set  in  columns  from  15 
ems  up. 


SOME  MECHANICAL  DETAILS  335 

The  size  of  a  page  in  the  standard  size  magazine 
is  5J  by  8  inches,  exclusive  of  the  heading.  Each 
column  is  approximately  2f  inches  wide,  that  strictly 
being  the  exact  width  allowed  when  an  8-point  slug 
or  rule  has  been  run 
down  the  center  of  the 
page  to  separate  the 
columns.  The  width 
of  a  column  in  the 
standard  four-column 
folio,  to  which  class 
the  Youth's  Compan- 
ion, Ladies'  Home 
Journal  and  most 
women's  publications 
belong,  is  2J  inches. 

At  least  one  three- 
column  publication, 
namely  Success,  has 
columns  of  the  same 
width  as  the  regular 
small  size  magazine 
columns,  so  that  a  page 
cut  from  one  of  the 
magazines  will  occupy 
two  columns  in  Suc- 
cess. This  is  for  the 
convenience  of  adver- 
tisers in  making  plates 
to  secure  uniformity 
of  size. 

In    practise     how-     PHOTOGRAPHY  FROM  A  MODEL  USED 

.    ,.       *  f  FOR  AN   EFFECTIVE    BOOKLET 

ever,   special   sizes   01  COVER. 

23 


336  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

plates  have  to  be  made  for  the  women's  papers  and  the 
weekly  papers,  although  it  is  thp  custom  of  large  ad- 
vertisers to  use  the  same  design  on  both,  adapting  it  to 
the  different  sizes  of  space.  Often  when  space  of  vari- 
ous sizes  or  proportions  is  used,  it  requires  considera- 
ble ingenuity  to  adapt  the  same  design  to  each  amount 
of  space.  It  is  best  to  keep  the  proportions  of  space 
the  same,  and  as  nearly  the  same  in  size  as  possible, 
in  order  to  secure  the  best  results.  For  instance,  a 
design  which  occupies  a  page  in  a  regular  magazine 
can  be  used  as  one-fourth  of  a  page  in  the  Saturday 
Evening  Post  or  Collier's  and  other  publications  of 
that  class,  without  losing  anything  in  its  effectiveness. 

It  is  a  custom,  by  no  means  as  general  as  it 
should  be,  to  send  an  original  half-tone  cut  instead 
of  an  electro  to  each  publication.  The  advertising 
pages  of  magazines — except  in  the  case  of  publica- 
tions where  the  entire  magazine  is  printed  on  the 
same  kind  of  paper,  as,  for  instance,  Country  Life 
in  America — are  printed  on  more  rapid  presses  than 
those  used  for  the  letter-press  and  also  upon  cheaper 
paper.  Even  in  the  case  of  the  best  half-tones,  the 
printing  results  are  not  all  that  could  be  desired.  It 
often  requires  a  great  deal  of  ingenuity  on  the  part 
of  the  designer  and  engraver  to  produce  cuts  which' 
will  print  well.  When  an  electrotype  is  made  from 
a  half-tone  the  fine  lines  are  not  duplicated  with  the 
same  sharpness,  and  the  cut  shows  a  blur  when  printed 
on  rapid  presses  and  cheap  paper. 

Photography  is  coming  to  play  a  large  part  in  the 
preparation  of  advertising  designs.  A  photograph  is 
inherently  truthful.  People  feel  that  what  is  shown 
is  an  actual  picture.  A  great  many  things  are  better 


SOME  MECHANICAL  DETAILS 


337 


illustrated  by  photographs 
than  by  drawings.  A  com- 
bination of  a  photograph 
with  a  design  drawn  by  an 
artist  often  makes  an  ef- 
fective display.  For  this 
reason  there  is  a  demand 
for  good  photographs,  and 
consequently  for  models 
to  pose. 

Models  for  advertising 
purposes  are  required  to 
be  something  more  than 
pretty.  What  are  wanted 
are  intelligent-looking  men 
and  women  and  especially 
with  refined  faces,  and 
they  are  required  to  have 
a  certain  ability  to  assume 
a  costume  or  a  pose — in 
fact,  to  act  the  part  as 
illustrated  in  the  adver- 
tisement. Such  models  are 
hard  to  obtain.  Another 
great  disadvantage  is  that 
a  model  who  has  been  used 


DIAGRAM  SHOWING  THE  SCREEN 
IN  HALF-TONE  WORK.  THE 
SCREEN  IS  MADE  VERY  COARSE 
AND  SHOWS  THE  GRADATION 
FROM  ABSOLUTE  BLACK  TO 
ABSOLUTE  WHITE.  THIS  IS 
HOW  THE  SHADED  EFFECTS 
ARE  OBTAINED  IN  HALF-TONE 
WORK. 


338  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

for  such  a  purpose  in  general  magazine  advertising 
becomes  so  well  known  that  he  or  she  can  not  be  used 
again.  This  limits  the  number  of  advertisers  who 
can  use  the  same  model,  and  tends  to  make  it  more 
difficult  to  secure  good  ones. 

A  half-tone  cut  can  be  made  from  any  photograph, 
drawing,  painting,  print,  or  directly  from  an  object, 
the  variation  in  tone  being  obtained  by  photograph- 
ing through  a  screen.  A  screen  is  made  by  ruling 
lines  upon  glass,  crossing  one  another  at  right  angles. 
The  fineness  of  the  screen  is  indicated  by  the  num- 
ber of  lines  to  an  inch,  as  a  60-line  screen,  133-line 
screen,  175-line  screen,  and  the  like,  being  the  num- 
ber of  lines  to  the  inch  in  each  direction.  These 
screens  are  very  valuable  and  comprise  a  large  part 
of  the  photoengraver's  investment.  The  cost  of  a 
screen  varies  from  $500  to  $1,000,  according  to  its 
size  and  fineness,  but  especially  large  and  fine  screens 
are  worth  more. 

If  you  will  take  a  magnifying  glass  and  look  at 
any  half-tone  picture  in  the  magazines,  you  will  see 
that  the  picture  is  crossed  by  numerous  black  lines 
in  the  medium  tones,  which  diminish  into  small  dots 
in  the  high  lights.  These  black  lines  get  thicker  in 
the  darker  tones,  converging  into  a  solid  mass  in  the 
blacks.  This  is  the  screen. 

If  a  white  sheet  of  paper  were  photographed 
through  a  screen  and  made  into  a  half-tone  cut, 
the  result  would  be  a  light  gray.  Therefore,  all  the 
whites  in  a  half-tone  design  become  gray,  while  the 
darker  tones  increase  in  intensity  into  solid  black. 
In  order  to  restore  the  whites  to  the  same  degree  of 
high  light  used  in  the  original,  the  white  parts  are 


SOME  MECHANICAL  DETAILS  339 

cut  out  so  that  there  is  no  screen  there  to  print.  A 
line-engraving  is  always  better  for  the  advertising 
pages  of  a  magazine,  but  that  precludes  the  use  of 
photographs  and  wash-drawings,  which  are  often  nec- 
essary to  show  the  article  advertised. 

Where  an  original  half-tone  is  used  in  each  pub- 
lication, the  type  matter  is  often  set  up  and  an  elec- 
trotype of  it  made,  which  is  fastened  to  the  half-tone 
plate  by  soldering.  Where  electrotypes  of  the  entire 
advertisement  are  used,  one  original  half-tone  is 
made,  the  type  matter  set  up  for  it,  and  as  many 
electrotypes  of  the  whole  are  made  as  there  are  pub- 
lications to  receive  the  advertisement. 

Even  when  an  original  half-tone  is  sent  to  the  mag- 
azine, it  is  not  to  be  understood  that  the  advertise- 
ment is  printed  from  this  half-tone.  In  the  case  of 
modern  magazines  of  large  circulation,  the  same  form 
of  advertising  pages  will  be  running  on  many  differ- 
ent presses.  For  instance,  in  the  case  of  the  Ladies' 
Home  Journal  and  The  Delineator  a  given  adver- 
tisement must  be  duplicated  many  times,  so  that  the 
printing  can  be  finished  to  mail  the  magazine  on  time. 
Electrotypes  are  taken  from  the  cut  sent.  When  this 
is  an  electrotype,  it  really  means  an  electrotype  from 
an  electrotype,  in  which  case  it  is  very  difficult  to 
get  satisfactory  results.  The  cut  sent  is  retained  by 
the  publication  until  the  printing  is  finished,  to  be 
ready  to  supply  any  additional  plates  in  case  of  an 
accident. 

It  is  not  necessary  for  an  advertising  man  to  un- 
derstand engraving  technically,  but  there  are  a  few 
terms,  the  definition  of  which  will  make  his  work 
easier  for  him. 


340 


MODERN  ADVERTISING 


A  half-tone  cut  has  already  been  defined. 
A  line-cut  is  a  cut  made  from  any  drawing  or 
print  which  is  wholly  in  line  or  stipple. 

A  design  which  is  intended  to  be  engraved  should 
be  marked  for  the  sizes  of  both  dimensions.  For  in- 
stance, if  it  is  a  page  for  a  magazine  5^  by  8  inches, 
the  size,  5J  by  8  inches,  should  be  marked  on  the 
design.  If  the  design  has  been  drawn  in  proper  pro- 
portion, it  will  reduce  exactly  to  the  right  size ;  if 
not,  the  engraver  will  notice  it  at  once  and  call  atten- 
tion to  the  fact. 

To  obtain  the  right  proportion  advertising  art- 
ists and  engravers  use  a  very  simple  device,  although 
the  result  can  be  worked  out 
by  arithmetical  proportion.  A 
drawing,  let  us  suppose,  is  22 
by  32  inches,  and  is  to  be  re- 
duced to  the  size  of  a  magazine 
page.  A  line  is  drawn  diago- 
nally from  one  corner  to  an- 
other. In  the  lower  right-hand 
corner,  so  that  the  diagonal  line 
will  bisect  it,  is  drawn  the  exact 
size  of  the  space  to  which  the 
design  is  to  be  reduced.  If  the  design  is  in  the 
correct  proportions,  the  diagonal '  line  will  exactly 
bisect  this  space,  5|  by  8  inches,  just  as  it  does  the 
large  drawing.  If  it  is  out  of  proportion,  the  diag- 
onal line  will  show  just  how  much  so.  This  will 
be  made  very  clear  by  a  study  of  the  accompanying 
diagram. 

Photoengravers  and  artists  use  a  diminishing 
glass  to  get  the  effect  of  a  drawing  when  reduced,  as 


.SIZE  OF  DRAWING     / 

3* 

REDUCTION/' 

• 

SOME  MECHANICAL  DETAILS 


341 


often  the  effect  of  reduction  changes  the  design,  es- 
pecially as  to  darkening  the  same. 

These  two  processes,  line  and  half-tone  engraving, 
are  the  ones  mostly  used  by  advertisers. 


He  says  he  wants  some  more  I ' 


It's  the  H-O 

taste  that  makes 
the  H-O  want. 


Do   700   know   how  m»njr  delicioui  w»y»  ther< 
toprtpttt  H-O— delicioui  btctoK  H-O  I    Yen 


STRONG   DISPLAY   FOR  NEWSPAPER   ADVERTISEMENTS. 
REPRODUCED   BY  LINE-ENGRAVING. 


Wood-engraving  is  employed  to  some  extent,  not 
so  much,  however,  for  advertisements  in  publications 
as  for  catalogue  and  booklet  work. 

Advertisers  use  lithography  and  three-color  half- 
tone work  for  reproducing  objects  in  their  natural 
colors,  and  in  printing  show-cards,  street-car  cards, 
posters,  catalogues,  and  mailing-cards. 

In  addition  to  this,  very  good  color  work  is  ob- 


342  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

tained  by  printing  from  zinc  plates  in  flat  colors — 
that  is,  a  solid  color  from  each  plate.  This  sort  of 
work  is  considerably  less  expensive  than  three-color 
half-tone  or  lithography,  especially  for  small  editions, 
and  is  frequently  very  effective.  This  is  the  kind 
of  work  employed  for  cover  designs  upon  a  great  many 
publications. 

The  distribution  of  newspaper  advertisements  is 
a  very  different  business  from  that  of  placing  mag- 
azine advertisements.  The  magazine  offices  are  com- 
paratively few,  and  most  of  them  are  in  New  York 
City,  and  those  which  are  not  usually  maintain  a  lead- 
ing branch  office  there. 

Newspapers,  however,  are  published  over  the  en- 
tire country,  and  while  many  of  the  more  important 
ones  maintain  offices  in  the  large  cities,  those  offices 
do  not  receive  tlie  plates  intended  for  their  papers, 
as  this  would  make  a  tremendous  amount  of  work  in 
that  office. 

Advertising  intended  to  be  run  in  a  great  many 
publications  is  usually  prepared  a  long  time  in  ad- 
vance, an  entire  series  being  prepared  at  once.  These 
advertisements  are  then  made  up  into  printing-plates 
and  shipped  in  sets,  with  a  sheet  of  directions,  to  each 
newspaper  which  will  run  the  series.  This  sheet  is 
for  the  foreman,  and  is  called  a  "  broadside/'  and 
is  intended  to  be  pasted  upon  the  wall  in  front  of 
the  "  make-up  "  so  that  he  can  be  sure  of  inserting  the 
advertisements  in  the  right  order.  At  the  top  of  the 
sheet  are  printed  complete  instructions  as  to  position 
— for  instance,  local  page,  woman's  page,  top  of  col- 
umn, next  to  reading  matter,  or  whatever  the  contract 
calls  for.  Then  follow  proofs  of  the  advertisements 


SOME  MECHANICAL  DETAILS  343 

in  the  order  in  which  they  are  to  be  inserted.  A 
more  convenient  form,  especially  when  a  great 
many  advertisements  are  used  in  a  series,  is  a 
series  of  sheets  fastened  together  at  the  top,  with  the 
advertisements  printed  on  one  side  in  consecutive 
order. 

The  distribution  of  newspaper  plates  involves  so 
much  detail  work  that  at  least  one  company  has  been 
formed  which  makes  a  business  of  the  distribution  of 
such  plates.  When  an  advertiser  has  a  series  of  news- 
paper advertisements  intended  to  cover  the  entire 
country,  a  certain  number  of  duplicate  electrotypes 
are  sent  to  this  company,  one  to  each  of  its  branch 
offices.  For  instance,  there  is  an  office  in  New  York, 
one  in  Chicago  and  one  in  Kansas  City.  Ten  or 
twelve  such  branch  offices  cover  the  entire  country. 
Each  branch  office  has  one  electrotype,  from  which  it 
proceeds  to  make  as  many  duplicates  as  there  are 
papers  in  its  own  territory. 

The  advertisements  are  made  in  the  form  of  thin 
stereotyped  plates,  and  so  made  that  they  will  fit  upon 
a  common  base.  When  so  fitted  they  are  just  type- 
high  and  ready  to  be  printed  in  the  paper.  Each 
newspaper  receives  one  set  of  bases,  with  change  of 
advertisements  for  the  entire  set.  All  that  is  neces- 
sary for  the  foreman  or  make-up  of  the  newspaper  to 
do  is  to  slide  off  the  plate  which  has  been  printed  and 
slide  on  the  fresh  plate  for  the  next  issue. 

In  this  way  a  great  deal  of  freight  and  expressage 
is  saved,  as  the  boxes  of  plates  are  shipped  from  these 
branch  offices  a  comparatively  short  distance.  Also 
great  promptness  is  insured.  If  the  plates  were  all 
made  at  one  central  office  and  shipped  over  the  entire 


344  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

country,  it  would  take  a  great  deal  of  time  and  a 
great  deal  of  labor.  This  service  has  been  made  very 
complete. 

Another  method  not  so  satisfactory  is  as  follows: 
A  matrix  is  made  of  the  advertisement  when  it  is 
ready  to  be  printed  and  sent  to  each  publication  which 
will  run  the  advertisement.  The  newspaper  makes 
a  stereotyped  plate  from  this  matrix,  which  is  used 
to  print  the  advertisement.  The  disadvantage  of  this 
method  is  that  the  matrix  is  liable  to  be  damaged  in 
transit. 

When  a  small  numler  of  papers  are  used,  an  elec- 
trotype is  often  sent  to  each.  In  the  case  of  news- 
papers which  are  stereotyped  before  printing,  a  fresh 
stereotype  has  to  b.e  made  from  this  cut.  Newspapers 
which  print  from  their  own  type,  however,  can  use 
electrotypes  or  stereotypes  mounted  on  wood  bases. 

Some  mention  has  been  made  of  the  ready  prints 
or  patent  insides  which  are  supplied  to  small  papers 
that  can  not  do  all  their  own  presswork  and  type- 
setting. Advertising  placed  in  such  papers  requires 
the  sending  of  only  a  single  electrotype  to  the  home 
office  of  the  ready  print.  This  advertisement  is 
printed  with  the  rest  of  the  inside  and  sent  to  the 
paper  in  the  form  of  a  complete  newspaper  printed 
only  on  one  side.  The  local  news  is  then  printed  on 
the  other  side.  Such  newspapers  circulate  only  in  the 
ultra-rural  districts. 

The  success  of  an  advertiser  or  an  advertising 
manager  does  not  depend  upon  his  knowledge  of  type 
bodies,  but  a  knowledge  of  type  faces  adapted  to  ad- 
vertising display  is  useful.  There  are  some  men  who 
have  a  certain  instinctive  sense  of  display,  and  this 


SOME  MECHANICAL  DETAILS  345 

is  an  advantage  whether  the  man  is  a  typesetter  or 
an  advertising  man. 

Type  display  is  receiving  more  attention  than 
formerly,  and  this  is  a  good  sign.  One  large  adver- 
tiser, before  deciding  finally  upon  the  face  of  type  to 
be  used  in  a  series  of  newspaper  advertisements  which 
were  to  run  sixty-three  timer  in  2,450  daily  news- 
papers, had  one  of  these  advei  tisements  set  up  in  the 
type  under  discussion  and  inserted  in  a  New  York 
daily  newspaper  simply  to  judge  of  the  effect  of  the 
advertisement  so  displayed.  This  was  done  several 
times  before  he  came  to  a  fmal  decision. 

Display  type  is  type  varying  from  the  ordinary 
Roman  face  and  is  generally  of  larger  size  than  is 
found  in  ordinary  letter-press.  Among  the  names  of 
leading  display  types  used  by  the  best  advertisers  may 
be  mentioned  Caslon,  Jensen,  DeVinne,  Gothic,  Chel- 
tenham, Pabst  Old  Style,  Post  Old  Style,  together 
with  a  large  number  of  types  not  varying  greatly 
from  these  faces  and  giving  something  of  the  same 
effect. 

New  type  faces  are  added  from  time  to  time,  and 
generally  are  the  work  of  designers.  For  instance, 
Post  Old  Style  is  a  face  which  was  designed  for  the 
headings  of  the  Saturday  Evening  Post.  These  head- 
ings were  drawn  by  a  designer  and  engraved.  The 
letter  was  a  particularly  happy  one,  especially  for 
open  display,  and  it  was  finally  purchased  by  a  type- 
founder's company  which  cut  it  as  a  regular  display 
letter  so  that  it  can  now  be  bought  in  any  size. 

The  face  of  a  type  indicates  the  particular  style 
of  letter  used,  as  Caslon  or  Jensen.  Its  size  is  the 
size  of  the  type  body,  now  measured  by  the  point 


346  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

system.  There  are  72  points  to  an  inch.  Large 
newspapers  are  generally  set  in  5^  point,  6  point,  7 
point  or  8  point.  Magazines  are  set  in  8  point  and 
10  point.  Books  are  set  in  1.0  point  and  12  point. 

Formerly  all  type  had  names,  and  these  old  names 
are  sometimes  used  now,  even  though  the  type  has 
been  cast  upon  the  point  system.  The  old  names  of 
type,  together  with  their  present  sizes,  are  as  follows : 

3£  Point  Brilliant 

4*  "  Diamond 

5  "  Pearl 
5i  "  Agate 

6  "  Nonpareil 

7  "  Minion 

8  "  Brevier 

9  "  Bourgeois 

10  "       Long  Primer 

11  "       Small  Pica 

12  "       Pica 

14  "  2-line  Minion  or  English 

15  "  3-line  Pearl 

16  "  2-line  Brevier 
18  "  Great  Primer 

20  "  2-line  Long  Primer  or  Paragon 

22  "  2-line  Small  Pica 

24  "  2-line  Pica 

28  "  2-line  English 

30  "  5-line  Nonpareil 

32  "  4-line  Brevier 

36  "  2-line  Great  Primer 

40  "  Double  Paragon 

42  "  7-line  Nonpareil 

44  "  4-line  Small  Pica  or  Canon 

48  "  4-line  Pica 

54  "  9-line  Nonpareil 

60  "  5-line  Pica 

72  "  6-line  Pica 


SOME  MECHANICAL  DETAILS  347 

Metal  type  is  cast  as  large  as  120  point.  Wood 
type  is  made  in  multiples  of  a  pica,  and  the  differ- 
ent sizes  are  known  as  10-line  Pica,  12-line  Pica,  etc., 
the  10-line  Pica  being  10  picas  high,  etc. 

Type  generally  has  a  shoulder  so  that  when  one 
line  is  set  up  under  another,  there  is  a  certain  white 
space  between  the  two  lines  of  letters.  To  increase 
this  space  the  printer  inserts  between  the  two  lines  a 
thin  sheet  of  metal  known  as  a  "  lead."  A  lead  varies 
in  thickness  from  one  point  to  three  points,  but  above 
three  points  it  is  known  as  a  "  slug." 

Advertisements  are  frequently  surrounded  by 
borders  which  are  set  up  just  as  type  is  set.  A  great 
variety  of  borders  have  been  designed  and  are  cast  by 
type-founders.  They  are  made  of  type-metal  and 
brass,  in  plain  and  fancy  patterns,  giving  a  variety 
of  choice. 

When  an  advertisement,  with  or  without  a  cut, 
has  been  made  ready  to  print,  and  is  to  be  duplicated 
by  electrotyping,  a  wax  mold,  dusted  with  plum- 
bago, is  pressed  over  the  face  of  the  type  and  care- 
fully removed.  The  mold  is  again  dusted  with 
plumbago  and  put  into  an  electrical  bath  which  de- 
posits copper  into  the  mold.  The  thin  film  or  shell 
of  copper  so  deposited  is  removed  by  heating  or  melt- 
ing the  wax,  and  is  "  backed  up  "  with  lead,  a  sheet 
of  tin-foil  first  having  been  melted  into  the  back  of 
the  copper  film  or  shell,  which  acts  as  a  fuse  to  make 
the  lead  adhere  to  the  copper.  This  is  an  electrotype. 
It  is  generally  mounted  on  a  wood  base  for  printing. 
When  the  advertisement  is  to  be  duplicated  by  stereo- 
typing, the  matrix  or  mold  is  made  from  soft,  pulpy 
paper  which  is  beaten  or  rolled  down  upon  the  type 


348  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

until  it  takes  the  impression.  The  matrix  or  mold 
is  then  baked  on  the  type  and  removed.  The  molten 
type-metal  is  then  poured  into  this  mold  or  matrix, 
which  produces  a  form  of  the  type  previously  set  in 
one  solid  piece.  This  is  a  stereotype.  Only  one  elec- 
trotype can  be  made  from  a  wax  mold,  whereas  from 
ten  to  fifteen  stereotypes  can  be  made  from  the  same 
paper  mold. 

The  trade  catalogue  of  a  large  type-founder's  com- 
pany makes  one  of  the  best  text-books  treating  upon 
type,  although  a  large  number  of  the  display  faces 
shown  are  not  valuable  to  the  advertiser.  Type  for 
advertising  should  be  legible  and  distinctive.  The 
secret  of  display  is  contrast.  The  display  lines  should 
stand  out  from  the  surrounding  page  of  type.  An  ad- 
vertisement that  is  set  all  in  display  has  no  display 
whatever.  In  practise,  the  types  having  the  closest 
resemblance  to  the  original  Roman  letter,  which  is 
the  letter  of  ordinary  reading  type,  make  the  best 
display.  It  is  easier  to  read  lower  case  than  capitals, 
and  the  modern  practise  is  to  set  display  lines  in 
lower  case. 

The  subject  of  display  is  an  endless  one,  varying 
as  it  does  with  the  taste  of  the  advertiser  and  the  re- 
quirements of  his  subject.  Several  advertisements 
reproduced  elsewhere  are  good  examples  of  different 
kinds  of  pure  type  display  and  type  display  in  com- 
bination with  an  illustration,  cut  or  design.  It 
should  be  remembered  also  that  not  only  must  an 
advertisement  have  display  in  itself,  but  it  must  con- 
trast with  other  advertisements  shown  on  the  same  or 
adjoining  pages.  The  subject  is  an  interesting  and 
even  a  fascinating  one,  especially  as  no  advertiser  has 
yet  conclusively  answered  it. 


SOME  MECHANICAL  DETAILS  349 

When  we  speak  of  placing  advertisements  in  news- 
papers we  refer  to  placing  regularly-prepared  adver- 
tisements in  the  regular  way  as  described.  There 
are  other  forms  of  newspaper  advertising.  For  in- 
stance, it  is  now  possible  sometimes  to  arrange  so 
that  a  particular  item  of  advertising  may  be  tele- 
graphed to  various  newspapers  just  as  news  is  tele- 
graphed, and  set  up  as  regular  telegraph  news.  Read- 
ing-notices of  all  kinds  are  used,  according  to  the 
policy  of  the  paper.  For  instance,  some  newspapers 
will  run  them  as  pure  reading-matter.  Others  insist 
on  marking  them  in  some  way,  either  by  a  heading 
different  from  the  regular  heading  of  the  paper,  or 
by  the  letters,  "  Adv."  at  the  end  of  an  article,  or  by 
three  asterisks,  as  ***. 

In  the  early  days  of  newspaper  advertising  there 
used  to  be  quite  a  list  of  mysterious  expressions  which 
were  used  to  indicate  the  position  of  the  advertise- 
ment, or  the  length  of  time  it  was  to  run,  or  the 
number  of  insertions,  or  the  order.  For  instance, 
an  advertisement  would  be  marked,  "  e.o.w.t.f."  It 
would  mean  "  every  other  week  till  forbid. "  Simi- 
larly "  t.c."  meant  "  top  of  column  "  ;  "  r.p.,"  "  run 
of  paper  "  ;  "  n.r.,"  "  next  to  reading-matter  "  ; 
"  e.o.d.,"  "  every  other  day,"  and  the  like.  These 
expressions  are  no  longer  used,  either  by  advertising 
men  or  newspapers,  except  in  rural  parts.  Adverti- 
sing is  so  systematized  now  that  the  bookkeeping  is 
done  outside  the  columns  of  the  newspaper  in  which 
the  advertising  appears. 

The  mechanical  part  of  the  advertising  agency's 
work  is  usually  done  by  outside  concerns,  under  the 
supervision  of  the  advertising  agent,  but  some  agencies 


350  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

are  so  complete  that  they  maintain  their  own  printing 
department,  photoengraving  and  electrotyping  plants. 
This  is,  however,  the  exception  rather  than  the  rule. 

Advertising  running  in  newspapers  and  maga- 
zines makes  necessary  a  great  deal  of  printed  mat- 
ter as  collateral  advertising.  The  advertiser  must 
have  at  least  a  catalogue,  and  generally  a  booklet 
or  two  to  describe  the  article  or  articles  which  he 
sells.  He  often  requires  quite  a  lot  of  printed 
matter  to  reach  various  branches  of  the  trade  which 
sells  his  goods. 

A  "  dummy "  is  a  booklet,  catalogue  or  folder 
made  up  roughly  and  approximately  to  resemble  the 
finished  printed  thing.  It  will  show  the  kinds  of 
stock,  the  colors  of  ink,  the  sizes,  number  of  pages 
and  other  facts.  If  the  booklet  is  to  be  mailed  in 
an  envelope,  the  envelope  is  part  of  the  dummy. 
Rough  sketches  of  the  illustrations  and  where  they 
are  to  appear  are  shown,  and  also  an  indication  of  the 
kind  and  style  of  type  and  how  the  booklet  is  to  be 
printed.  From  such  a  dummy  a  printer  can  make  an 
estimate  of  the  cost  of  producing  any  part  of  the  fin- 
ished booklet. 

No  sharp  distinction  exists  between  a  catalogue, 
booklet,  pamphlet  or  leaflet.  A  catalogue  is  the  more 
formal,  and  usually  is  a  technical  description  and 
price-list  of  the  goods.  A  booklet  may  be  a  brief 
and  popular  description  of  them.  A  pamphlet  and 
a  leaflet  are  supposably  smaller  than  a  booklet.  A 
folder  is  simply  a  sheet  of  paper  folded  in  several 
forms.  It  may  be  inserted  in  an  envelope,  in  which 
case  it  is  called  an  "  envelope-stuffer,"  or  may  be 
mailed  separately.  Some  folders  are  very  elaborate 


SOME  MECHANICAL  DETAILS  351 

and  amount  to  the  dignity  of  a  booklet  both  in  ex- 
pense and  appearance. 

A  form  letter  is  a  letter  which  can  be  used  prac- 
tically as  written  in  a  great  many  instances.  It  is 
written  out  in  each  case  by  a  typewriter  who  makes 
the  necessary  variations  in  each  one,  but  who  uses  the 
letter  substantially  as  it  is  written. 

A  facsimile  letter  is  a  letter  reproduced  by  a  proc- 
ess which  prints  the  body  of  the  letter,  printing  also 
a  facsimile  of  the  signature.  The  name  and  address 
of  the  individual  recipient  are  then  typewritten  in  at 
the  top.  This  process  has  been  brought  up  to  such 
a  high  grade  of  perfection  as  regards  style  of  type 
and  color  of  ink  that  it  is  often  difficult  to  distinguish 
between  a  facsimile  letter  and  a  letter  that  has  been 
actually  dictated  and  transcribed  entire. 

Follow-up  letters  are  either  form  letters  or  fac- 
simile letters  used  to  stir  up  further  interest  on  the 
part  of  an  inquirer  who  has  apparently  dropped  the 
matter. 

Follow-up  matter  is  printed  matter  for  the  same 
purpose,  whether  booklets,  folders  or  cards. 

A  special  postal  card  is  a  card  printed  for  adver- 
tising purposes,  from  about  the  same  size  as  a  govern- 
ment postal  card  up  to  as  large  as  can  be  carried  for 
one  cent. 

A  tickler  is  any  small  piece  of  printed  matter  sent 
out  to  keep  open  a  prospective  sale  on  the  part  of  the 
inquirer. 

Bundle-slips  are  bits  of  printing  dropped  into 
bundles  as  they  are  wrapped  in  the  store. 

A  street-car  card  is  the  card  usually  inserted  in 
the,  racks  of  street-cars,  which  are  uniformly  21  X  11 
inches,  or  42  X  11  inches  in  the  case  of  double  cards. 
24 


352  MODERN  ADVERTISING 

The  new  cars  of  several  large  street-car  lines  as, 
for  instance,  the  elevated  railroad  of  New  York,  has 
resulted  in  larger  spaces  for  the  showing  of  street- 
car cards,  so  that  in  these  lines  they  may  now  be 
21  X  15  inches. 

The  size  and  shape  of  a  street-car  card  are  often 
used  for  a  card  to  show  in  windows  or  to  hang  up 
about  a  store,  so  that  the  same  design  and  printing 
can  be  used  for  both. 

Hangers  are  printed  or  lithographed  cards  of  vari- 
ous shapes  and  sizes,  to  be  hung  up  in  a  store. 

Counter-strips  are  narrow  strips  which  can  be 
nailed  along  the  edges  of  counters  or  shelves  without 
interfering  with  the  display  of  goods  thereon. 

Novelties  comprise  a  long  line  of  useful  and 
ornamental  articles  which  are  given  away  by  adver- 
tisers with  their  name  and  address  and  possibly  other 
advertising  printed  upon  them. 

The  oldest  and  simplest  form  of  novelty  is  the 
calendar,  and  next  to  that  the  blotter  and  the  fan,  but 
novelties  often  take  the  form  of  clocks,  thermometers, 
inkstands,  paper-weights,  caps  and  aprons  for  factory 
and  shop  hands,  memorandum-books,  note-books,  pen- 
cils, pens — in  short,  hardly  any  article  of  use  or 
beauty  can  be  thought  of  which  has  not  been  used 
as  an  advertising  novelty  by  some  advertiser.  • 

A  rate-card  is  a  card  or  printed  sheet  giving  the 
advertising  rates  in  a  given  publication.  Usually 
such  cards  are  very  complicated.  They  are  based 
upon  a  certain  definite  price  per  page  or  per  line 
according  to  the  circulation.  Then  there  are  various 
concessions  due  to  using  a  given  number  of  pages  or 
lines  within  a  certain  time.  Often  a  publication  with 


SOME  MECHANICAL  DETAILS  353 

a  line-rate  will  have  a  discount  for  fifty-two  inser- 
tions, or  a  discount  for  1,500  lines  used  within  a 
year.  This  often  makes  it  difficult  to  estimate  the 
cost  of  space  in  a  great  many  publications  as  the  con- 
ditions are  by  no  means  uniform. 

Rate-cards  of  magazines  and  weekly  publications 
are  easier  to  comprehend  and  more  compact  than  those 
of  the  newspapers,  especially  the  smaller  newspapers. 
There  has  been  a  movement  on  foot  for  years  to  bring 
about  a  uniform  rate  to  apply  to  small  newspapers, 
but  it  has  never  succeeded. 

It  is  very  important  for  an  advertising  agency  to 
have  in  its  possession  up-to-date  rate-cards  of  all  pub- 
lications with  which  it  does  business.  To  insure  the 
safe  receipt  of  a  new  rate-card,  most  publishers  send 
these  cards  to  the  agencies  under  registered  mail.  It 
might  make  a  difference  of  a  good  many  thousand 
dollars  if  an  agency  were  not  instantly  and  promptly 
informed  of  any  change  in  the  rates  of  a  newspaper 
or  magazine. 


THE    END. 


INDEX 


Advertising,  real  beginning  of 
modem,  1;  a  combination 
of  hundreds  of  different  ele- 
ments, 61;  developing  cor- 
set trade,  56;  cost  of,  58; 
definition  of,  6;  dictionary 
sense,  1;  a  recent  develop- 
ment, 13;  early  successes  in, 
27;  as  a  great  educational 
force,  7;  effect  on  soda  bis- 
cuit, 9;  the  first,  5;  illiter- 
acy, small  percentage  of,  2; 
improvement  in  making 
clothes  due  to,  42;  interests 
of  the  public,  12;  Fanny 
Fern's  story,  23;  early  in 
New  York  Ledger,  15;  Jen- 
ny Lind  concerts,  25;  elimi- 
nating the  middle  men,  44; 
modern  definition  of,  63; 
modern  sense,  1;  novelties, 
101;  of  Oak  Hall,  21;  out- 
doors, 88 ;  possibilities  in  the 
future,  11 ;  printed  matter  as 
mediums,  98;  as  a  profes- 
sion, 4;  three  distinct  pro- 
fessions in,  31;  large  num- 
ber of  publications,  2 ;  break- 
ing down  relations  between 
manufacturer  and  retailer, 
36;  street-car  not  in  hands 


of  one  agent,  91 ;  well-known 
in  connection  with,  19;  a 
single  writer,  23;  beginning 
of  flake  food,  107;  of  H-O, 
106;  a  typical  instance,  129; 
pioneers,  108;  undeveloped 
possibilities  in,  109;  rail- 
roads, 120;  returns  direct 
not  possible  in  general,  125; 
stories  of  successes,  33;  vol- 
ume of  magazine  for  given 
month,  120. 

Advertising,  General,  defini- 
tion of,  102. 

Advertising,  Mail-order:  copy 
required  for  mail-order  pa- 
pers, 253;  definition  and 
growth  of,  245;  follow-up 
matter,  255;  pulling  power 
of  various,  256. 

Advertising,  Mathematics  of: 
that  appeals  to  the  sense  of 
taste,  382;  exact  results, 
261;  examples  of  modern, 
205,  210,  211,  217,  218,  223, 
231,  233,  237,  239,  251,  254, 
262,  263,  269,  271,  272,  273, 
307,  308,  310,  311,  312,  313, 
314,  316,  321,323,  324,  331, 
335,  341;  and  general  pub- 
licity, 290;  jingles  in,  326- 


356 


INDEX 


328;  keying,  264;  kind  of 
copy  to  use,  306;  investiga- 
tions, 292,  293,  294,  295,  296; 
and  mental  habits,  283;  out- 
line of  campaign,  202;  psy- 
chology of,  by  Prof.  Scott, 
278;  reaching  the  rich,  286; 
statistics  not  sufficiently 
complete,  285;  testing  gen- 
eral, 270;  verse  good  and 
bad,  326. 

Advertising,  Retail :  amount 
spent  by  leading  retailers, 
221;  definition  of  retail, 
220;  depends  on  direct  re- 
sults, 241 ;  Gillam  and  Wana- 
maker  style,  224;  local  mo- 
nopolies, 244;  of  Rogers, 
Feet  &  Company,  239;  syn- 
dicate retail,  243;  uniform 
style,  241;  varies  in  differ- 
ent cities,  242. 

Advertising,  Textile,  beginning 
of,  104 ;  beginning  of  Amer- 
ican Woolen  Company,  115; 
American  in  Great  Britain, 
139;  checking  up,  193;  cor- 
respondence schools,  151 ; 
unthought-of  fields  to  be 
developed,  118. 

Advertised  Goods :  baking- 
powder  history,  127;  break- 
fast foods  exploiting,  51; 
Mellin's  Food,  129;  two  ways 
of  selling,  33. 

Advertisers :  discouraged  by 
bad  agents,  164;  early  maga- 
zine, 114;  for  forty  years, 
120;  psychology  a  guide  for, 
280;  some  railroads,  120; 


large  general,  103;  two 
classes,  195. 

Advertising  Agency:  the  first, 
14;  inadequacy  of  name,  161 ; 
modern  renders  professional 
service,  200;  old  and  mod- 
ern ideas  of,  173;  old-time 
ones  are  loose  organiza- 
tions, 194;  planning  work 
in  cooperation  with,  154; 
service  against  price-cutting, 
177. 

Advertising  Agent:  bad,  164; 
George  Dyer  on,  167;  not 
employee  of  publication, 
162;  has  nothing  to  sell,  172; 
and  the  plan,  165;  how 
works  on  new  proposition, 
196;  should  be  unprejudiced, 
171;  what  he  should  know, 
166;  who  represents,  161. 

Advertising  Manager:  ability 
to  write,  136;  advertising 
writers  as  such,  143;  mis- 
leading impressions  about, 
147;  must  produce  exact, 
160;  retail  pay  and  work, 
221;  daily  routine,  235; 
salaries,  143;  training,  152; 
training  that  makes  a  suc- 
cessful, 148;  what  he  does, 
135;  what  he  should  know, 
144;  working  in  cooperation 
with  agency,  154;  working 
with  traveling  men,  156. 

Advertising  Men:  Napoleon, 
prototype,  3;  training,  152; 
training  to  make  a  success- 
ful, 148. 

Advertising    Space :     amount 


INDEX 


357 


paid  for,  67;  estimates  from 
newspaper  rate-cards,  185; 
estimates  and  rate  -  cards, 
182;  size  of  magazine  pages, 
75;  typical  estimate,  180. 

Agate  Line:  what  it  is,  333. 

Agricultural  papers,  87. 

Appropriations:  no  limit  to, 
199;  power  of  large,  275; 
small,  starting  with,  59; 
small,  working  with,  52. 

Assets:   trade-mark  as,  9. 

Baking  Powder:  history,  127; 
Royal's  investigation,  293. 

Balmer,  Thomas:  experience 
of,  105;  investigations,  296- 
299.- 

Barnum,  P.  T.:  advertises 
Jenny  Lind  concerts,  25. 

Bonner  and  the  New  York 
Ledger,  22. 

Booklets:  sent  in  return  for 
names  of  dealers,  263;  dum- 
mies, 350. 

Booklovers  Library,   138. 

Breakfast  Foods:  Force,  29; 
exploiting,  51;  flake  foods, 
107;  growth  of,  302;  H-O, 
106;  origin  of  Sunny  Jim, 
158. 

Brokerage:  letter,  257;  space, 
174. 

Catch-Phrase :  coining  a  new 
name,  197;  establishing, 
276. 

Circulation :  compared  with 
rate,  76;  map  showing  rela- 
tive density  of  circulation, 
65;  statements,  80. 


Clothing  Business :  example  of 
'modern  advertisement,  206; 
improvement  in  manufactur- 
ing, 42;  an  idea  that  revo- 
lutionized, 41 ;  advertising 
of  Rogers,  Peet  &  Company, 
239;  odd  sizes  in  clothing, 
39;  trade-marked  clothing, 
40;  transformation  of  ready- 
made,  38. 

Comfort:  as  a  standard,  73. 

Commission :  unsatisfactory 
and  illogical,  163;  why  illog- 
ical, 175. 

Comparison :  magazines  and 
newspapers,  64. 

Correspondence  Schools :  of 
advertising,  151;  for  mail- 
order, 259. 

Cost:  of  advertising,  58;  ad- 
vertising managers'  salaries, 
143;  amount  paid  for  space, 
67;  estimating  from  news- 
paper rate-cards,  185;  ap- 
propriation, 199;  estimate 
and  plan  as  presented  by 
agency,  201 ;  fixing  the  price, 
198;  price  of  space  cut,  176; 
rate-cards,  353;  rate-cards 
and  estimates,  182;  rate 
compared  with  circulation, 
76;  of  replies,  268;  of  lead- 
ing retailer's  advertising, 
222;  starting  with  small 
appropriation,  59;  working 
with  small  appropriation,  52; 
typical  estimate,  180. 

Coupons:  examples  of,  265- 
266. 

Campaign:  outline  of,  202. 


358 


INDEX 


Delineator:  history  of,  74;  in- 
vestigation, 296. 

Designs:  making  for  reduc- 
tion, 340. 

Dummies:  for  booklets  and 
catalogues,  350. 

Dyer,  George:  on  advertising 
agencies,  167. 

Eaton,  Seymour,  138;  style  of 
advertising,  141. 

Electro  typing:  what  it  is,  347. 

Estimate,  typical,  180;  as  pre- 
sented by  agency,  201 ;  from 
newspaper  rate-cards,  185; 
and  rate-cards,  182. 

Experiment,  with  mail  series, 
49. 

Fanny  Fern's  story,  adverti- 
sing, 23. 

Food  Advertising,  growth  of, 
302;  chart  showing  growth 
of  food  advertising  by  years, 
302. 

Force,  29. 

Gillam  and  Wanamaker  style, 

224. 
Growth  of    food    advertising: 

chart    showing    growth    by 

years,  302. 

Half-tone  Cut:  what  it  is,  338. 
Home  prints,  §2. 
House  organs,  100. 

Idea:  before-  and  after-taking, 
25,  271. 


Illustrations :  difficulty  of  get- 
ting good,  228 ;  the  half-tone 
cut,  338;  line  drawing,  315; 
making  designs  for  reduc- 
tion, 340;  original  half-tones 
and  electrotypes,  336;  pho- 
tography and  models,  337; 
wood  -  engraving  and  lith- 
ography, 341. 

Inducements  to  bring  replies, 
262. 

Investigations:  Breakfast  foods 
and  watches,  295 ;  Butterick 
trio,  296;  Northwestern  Ag- 
riculturist, 292;  Royal  Bak- 
ing Powder,  293;  toilet  soap, 
293. 

Jingles,  in  advertising,  326; 
examples,  327-331;  first, 
28;  good  and  bad,  326;  as 
collateral  advertising,  328 ; 
Phoebe  Snow,  330;  Sunny 
Jim,  327. 

Keying:    how  to  do  it,  264. 

Ladies'  Home  Journal,  as  a 
standard,  71;  form  of  con- 
tract, 178. 

Mail  series,  experiments  with, 
49. 

Maps:  showing  relative  den- 
sity of  circulation  over  the 
United  States,  65;  showing 
the  number  of  inhabitants  to 
each  weekly  publication,  67; 
showing  that  ten  States  pos- 
sess 81.08  per  cent,  of  the 
combined  circulation  of  all 


INDEX 


359 


publications,  68;  showing 
the  number  of  inhabitants 
to  each  daily  publication, 
70. 

Mail-order  Houses:  definition 
of,  245;  direct  results,  252; 
follow-up  matter,  255;  fraud 
orders,  258;  great,  247; 
growth  of,  245;  kind  of 
advertising  copy  required, 
253;  papers,  250;  history  of 
Sears,  Roebuck  &  Company, 
247;  style  of  advertising,  313. 

Magazines:  circulation  of,  66; 
classification  of  according  to 
character,  69,  70,  72,  73; 
compared  with  newspapers, 
64;  creation  of  the  10-cent, 
77;  size,  335;  volume  of  ad- 
vertising for  a  given  month, 
120. 

Manning,  John,  recollections, 
15. 

Mediums:  agricultural  papers, 
87;  circulation  of,  66;  clas- 
sification of,  according  to 
character,  69,  70,  71,  72,  73; 
magazines  compared  with 
newspapers,  64;  contract 
publications,  178;  cooper- 
ative newspapers,  83 ;  adver- 
tising definition  of,  63;  mail- 
order papers,  250;  printed 
matter  as,  98;  religious 
papers,  87;  readers  of,  79; 
trade  papers,  86. 

Name:    coining  a,  197. 
Newspapers,  circulation  of,  66; 
classification  of  according  to 


character,  69,  70,  71,  72,  73; 
compared  with  magazines, 
64;  cooperative,  83;  defi- 
nition of,  81 ;  dickering  with, 
186;  distributing  plates  to, 
342;  making  error  in  price, 
236;  need  of  flat  rate,  191; 
rate-card,  185,  186;  used  ex- 
clusively by  early  agents, 
26;  width  of  columns,  334. 

New  York  Ledger,  early  ad- 
vertising in,  15;  and  Mr. 
Bonner,  22. 

Novelties,  advertising,  101 ; 
their  use,  352. 

Oak  Hall,  and  its  advertising, 

21. 
Out-door  advertising,  88. 

Painted  signs,  permanent,  96; 
high  prices  paid  for,  98; 
examples  of,  97-99. 

Palmer,  Pettingill's  impression 
of,  16;  and  Pettingill  as 
competitors,  20. 

Patent  insides,  82. 

Patent  Medicines,  the  first  ad- 
vertising, 5. 

Pettingill :  impression  of  Palm- 
er, 16;  a  well-known  name 
in  advertising,  19;  and 
Palmer  as  competitors,  20. 

Phoebe  Snow,  and  the  road  of 
anthracite,  330. 

Posters,  size  of,  94,  95. 

Price,  error  in,  made  by  paper, 
236. 

Printed  matter,  as  mediums, 
98;  good,  315;  all  kinds  of, 
351. 


360 


INDEX 


Proprietary  Remedies,  first 
large  advertisers,  14. 

Publications,  large  number  of, 
2;  contract,  179. 

Quoin  Club,  what  it  is,  165. 

Rate-cards,  use  of,  363. 

Readers,  of  different  publi- 
cations, 79. 

Recollections,  John  Manning, 
15. 

Religious  Papers,  87. 

Retail  Industries,  figures  of, 
43. 

Retail  Lines,  amount  spent  by 
leaders,  222;  antagonizing, 
153;  catalogue  houses,  254; 
controlled  by  single  manu- 
facturer, 36;  cultivation  by 
manufacturer,  48;  develop- 
ment of  corset  trade,  56; 
eleven  leading,  33;  Gillam 
and  Wanamaker  style,  224; 
fraud  orders,  258;  mail-or- 
der houses,  247;  local  mo- 
nopolies, 244;  Rogers,  Peet 
&  Company,  239;  principal 
shopping  days  of  the  week, 
232;  syndicates,  243;  varies 
in  different  cities,  242. 

Retail  Trade,  antagonizing  the, 
153. 

Replies,  inducements  to  bring, 
262. 

Returns,  advertising  manager 
must  produce,  160;  cost  of, 
268;  direct  not  possible  in 
general  publicity,  125;  exact 
required  by  modern  adver- 


tisers, 261;  from  one  item 
of  hosiery,  297;  from  in- 
vestigations, 292,  293,  294, 
295,  296;  in  mail-order  pa- 
pers, 252. 

Rogers,  Peet  &  Company,  style 
of  advertising,  239. 

Rural  free  delivery,  three- 
fourths  people  reached  by, 
246;  statistics  of,  249;  stim- 
ulus of,  248. 

Sapolio,  28. 

Spotless  Town,   28. 

Sunny  Jim,  29;  origin  of,  158; 

psychology    of    impression, 

273. 
Scott,    Professor,    psychology 

of  advertising,  278. 
Sears,   Roebuck   &  Company, 

history  of,  247. 
Silhouette,  effectively  used  in 

newspaper  advertising,  198; 

examples  of,  329. 
Should  be  advertised:  canned 

molasses,  112;  food  products, 

111;  salt,  113;  undeveloped 

possibilities,  109;  unthought- 

of  fields,  118. 
Skirt   Binding/    standardizing, 

37. 
Space,   cutting  price  of,   176; 

order  for,  192. 
Space,  size  of  magazine  pages, 

75. 
Standardizing  a  skirt  binding, 

37. 
Statistics  and  their  relation  to 

advertising,  304;  not  suffi- 
ciently complete,  285. 


INDEX 


361 


Styles:  Seymour  Eaton,  141; 
different  in  different  cities, 
232;  Gillam  and  Wana- 
maker,  224;  stupid  imita- 
tions, 307;  Macbeth,  263; 
mail-order,  313;  New  York 
Department  Store,  233;  Bos- 
ton, 237;  Chicago,  231 ;  Phil- 
adelphia, 223;  reaching  the 
rich,  286;  Rogers,  Peet  & 
Company,  239;  Powers,  145; 
appealing  to  sense  of  taste, 
282;  designed  type,  311; 
good  type,  309;  uniform, 
241;  what  to  use,  306. 

Street-car  Cards,  circulation  of, 
93;  not  combined  in  hands 
of  one  agent,  91;  example 
of  cards,  92,  93;  number  re- 
quired for  the  United  States, 
90;  size  of,  92. 

Terms,  obsolete,  349. 
Textile  advertising,  the  begin- 
ning of,  104. 
Trade-mark,  clothing,  40;   the 


great  asset,  9;  using  face  as, 

317;  value  of,  126. 
Trade  Papers,  86;  example  of 

catchy  style  advertising  in, 

218. 
Transformation  of  ready-made 

clothing  business,  38. 
Traveling  Men,  working  with 

advertising  manager,  156. 
Triangle,  the  business,  45. 
Type,  agate  line,  333;    to  ad- 
vertiser, 344;    display,  348; 

used    in    advertising,    345; 

knowledge    of    bodies    not 

necessary,  344;  sizes  of,  346; 

good  styles,  309. 

Wanamaker,  and  the  fakir, 
229;  Gillam  style,  224;  be- 
ginning of  store  adverti- 
sing, 226;  style  older  than 
store,  230. 

Ways  of  selling  advertised 
goods,  33. 

Window-dressing,  238. 

Wood-engraving,   use  of,  341. 


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